Miguel Cardona: This Is The 'Authority' Biden Administration Has To Forgive Student Loans

5 months ago

At yesterday's House Education Committee hearing, Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) questioned Education Secretary Miguel Cardona about student loan forgiveness.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00 Secretary Cardona for being here today, for keeping the focus.

00:06 I know it's been hard because of the manner in which the questions get asked, but I keep

00:10 seeing you keeping the focus on the issue of education because we know that education

00:17 is both the foundation of our democracy as well as the path for prosperity for our families.

00:25 Now I wanted to give you the time to answer a bit about the question that came up earlier.

00:33 You really weren't given the time or, I'm sorry, the respect to be able to explain the

00:38 authorities that you have under the Higher Education Act to forgive student loans.

00:44 And that authority was given to the department through the Higher Education Act.

00:50 Would you like to do a quick response to why you are acting with regard to student loans

00:57 and the authority you're doing it in?

00:59 Well, we're looking very carefully at the authorities that I have under the Higher Education

01:04 Act, an authority that was used by the last secretary as well.

01:09 And the crisis that we're in with our higher education loan system and access to college,

01:15 and we're using our authority carefully to make sure that we're making targeted decisions

01:20 to help students accomplish their goals of reaching college and following up on what

01:26 the, in bipartisan fashion, what Congress approved through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness

01:30 Program.

01:31 Thank you for that opportunity.

01:32 Right.

01:33 And I think it's really important that Congress is constantly sort of assisting different

01:38 industries, assisting different corporations, and the idea that we're going to be investing

01:43 in our future workforce, in our children through education is no different.

01:48 Right.

01:49 And to say that Americans should not help with this endeavor is very short-sighted,

01:55 because if we don't invest through education in our workforce, we do not have a future.

02:01 So I am glad you are making those decisions.

02:04 I wanted to touch on another topic, which we know that during the pandemic, it was hard

02:12 on everybody.

02:13 Our former president was doing a disastrous job of handling COVID.

02:20 But then President Biden came in, and under a Democrat-led Congress, we passed multiple

02:26 hours, we passed the American Rescue Plan, which gave schools a lot of flexibility on

02:31 how to respond to these dire situations we found ourselves in.

02:37 And schools use that flexibility.

02:38 They used it to accelerate student learning, to address student mental health, to support

02:43 educated workforce, because schools themselves, it was a philosophy of schools themselves

02:47 would know best where to spend that money.

02:52 And I loved reading your testimony that you think that bilingual, being bilingual is a

02:58 superpower.

02:59 I agree.

03:00 And in New Mexico, some of those emergency relief funds were used for dual-language teachers

03:07 for certifications.

03:09 I'm concerned about the different things that are going to happen as ESSA funds expire.

03:15 How is your department preparing to assist schools with things like educated professor

03:24 development, preparation for dual-language teachers?

03:28 How are we looking at the transition, and how does your budget address this issue of

03:32 the transition and focusing on some of these needed areas?

03:36 Thank you for that question, and absolutely, bilingualism is a superpower.

03:42 And I think what we need to do is make sure we're empowering our students to learn more

03:46 languages so they can be prepared for global competitiveness.

03:49 I really believe that strongly.

03:52 Our budget does request additional dollars for our OLA office that focuses on English

04:02 language acquisition.

04:03 It's important while maintaining your native language that you're learning English, so

04:07 we have a request there for $50 million above last year's FY23 budget.

04:14 We're continuing to support sustainability efforts, working with states.

04:18 I was on the phone with the governor of New Mexico yesterday talking about how the Department

04:23 of Education could support New Mexico and ensuring that those strategies that we have

04:28 seen worked.

04:29 And I appreciate you mentioning the American Rescue Plan dollars.

04:32 We've seen more growth in the '22-'23 school year as a result of the use of those dollars

04:38 than we've seen since 2009 for students in reading, mental health access.

04:43 So the goal really is to make sure that we're continuing on those efforts that we know work,

04:48 after school programming, summer programming, mental health supports.

04:51 We're working with states on how they can use existing funds, and our annual budget

04:57 does show we're increasing Title III dollars, Title I dollars, to make sure that schools

05:03 have the dollars that they need to be successful.

05:05 Right, and those Title I dollars are so important because if we want America to succeed, we

05:10 need to make sure our working families and those families that are living in the highest

05:15 areas of poverty have the support they need.

05:19 Thank you very much for your work, and I yield back.

Miguel Cardona: This Is The 'Authority' Biden Administration Has To Forgive Student Loans

Category

Transcript

Recommended