Biden spends hundreds of billions on reducing student-loan debt

Reforming the costly financing of higher education in America would require Congress to agree on a redesign, which would be an arduous and tiresome process. Joe Biden has instead decided to go it alone. On August 24th the president announced a sweeping debt-forgiveness plan through executive order. The federal government will remove up to $10,000 from the balances of individuals earning less than $125,000 a year (as 95% of Americans do), and $20,000 for those who received Pell grants, which are mostly awarded to university students from poor families. Yet despite Mr Biden’s effort to cut the Gordian knot of student debt, America will be tangled up in it again soon enough.