President Biden has implemented numerous education policies denounced by Republicans who hope former President Trump will sweep them away if he returns to the White House, but some may prove more inflexible than others.
Biden’s reforms on everything from student loans to Title IX could be on the chopping block in a second Trump administration.
“We’ve seen this before: regulatory ping-pong between administrations is something the higher education community is likely expecting at this point,” said Stephanie Hall, senior director of higher education policy at the Center for American Progress. “I think the alarm bells are ringing, perhaps even more so… in unprecedented times, because there are a number of paths” that can be taken to overturn Biden’s policies.
One of the biggest potential fights would be around the new income-based student loan repayment program called Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE). The first part of the SAVE plan, which caused income protected payments to increase from 150 percent above federal poverty guidelines to 225 percent, took effect last year. The second part, previously set for this month, included reducing monthly payments from 10% of discretionary income to 5% for undergraduate student loans.
Republicans have denounced the plan numerous times, with several red states challenging the initiative in court. The justices swayed among themselves in blocking certain parts of the SAVE plan, and a group of Republican-led states appealed to the Supreme Court for an emergency ruling.
“If there is a second Trump administration, there are a number of paths they could take to eliminate the SAVE plan,” Hall said.
A Trump administration would also almost certainly follow new Title IX regulations that include protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Several states have sued over the Biden administration’s Title IX changes that allow transgender students into their preferred locker rooms, bathrooms and sports teams.
A re-elected President Trump would almost certainly fail to defend these reforms in court, potentially allowing state challenges to do his work for him.
“The department, the administration, can choose to stop defending the regulations. This is not very common, but it happens and it is an option,” said Reid Setzer, director of government affairs at the Education Trust.
“This can happen, but it is complicated and gives the administration less control. They will still be subject to whatever a judge, appellate system or Supreme Court wants to do,” she added.
The new Title IX changes also reversed some Trump-era policies that required a stricter evidentiary standard regarding sexual assault or harassment on campuses.
Changing Title IX from within would require a long reform process, including a public comment period.
In the case of higher education issues like the SAVE plan, a new head of the Department of Education would have to begin the negotiated rulemaking process, which would require bringing together stakeholders and holding multiple meetings.
Both processes can take months or more than a year to complete and require exorbitant resources to accomplish.
“You will see that many times changes in higher education will not actually be consummated, finally, until the second half of a four-year presidential term because of this process,” Setzer said.
Trump has not expressed his opinion on the SAVE plan, but he stood firm against student loan forgiveness after the Supreme Court overturned Biden’s universal debt relief, celebrating the decision.
If Republicans manage to achieve a government trifecta in November, the easiest path for Trump to undo at least some of Biden’s policies would be through the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows lawmakers to review and override government regulations.
Republicans tried to use the CRA to block Biden’s push for $20,000 student debt relief last year, but were unable to get the necessary votes. Even if they had done so, Biden would have vetoed the measure.
“If there is unified conservative Republican control of the government, that would allow the majority to remove regulations enacted, roughly speaking, in the last six to seven months of this current administration,” Setzer said.
“This can be done through a 50-vote limit in the Senate. And this technique, this method, was employed three times by Democrats in Congress in 2021 for Trump rules, and then it was employed several more times, I want to say 10 or 11 times, by the Republican majority in 2017. So when you’re a new administration, if you have this as a potential option that clears the table, so to speak, requires you to do less,” he added.
While major policy changes are not as common due to the lengthy process of undoing the work of a previous administration, experts say the impact of any attempts at change should not be ignored.
“I think we’re trying to focus on what this means for students. I think they will be the ones who pay the price, whether they are student loan borrowers, who will see their bills go up […] they will increase by the thousands for typical borrowers if the SAVE plan is eliminated,” Hall said. “It’s going to hit people’s wallets.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
