Social Security

Ella Azoulay [Research & Policy Analyst, Student Borrower Protection Center], a 26-year-old who lives in Washington, visited the rally to join the push for debt relief, which she calls a “family issue.” A 2018 graduate of New York University, Azoulay has $40,000 in student debt, while her dad has more than $400,000 taken out on behalf of her and her two siblings. “I can’t really think about my future without thinking about this…

Joining over 500 students, debtors and advocates in a rally organized by the Student Borrower Protection Center, the lawmakers said that Biden has the legal authority to cancel student debt and that the court case boils down to partisan posturing in a concerted effort by conservative elites to suppress the working class.

Amy Czulada [Outreach & Advocacy Manager, Student Borrower Protection Center] is in her mid-30s and still has more than $100,000 in debt for her undergraduate and master’s degrees. “I certainly don’t regret getting an education, but it has inhibited me from doing things,” Czulada said. “You’re always making hard choices – ‘Do I pay off my student debt or get a prescription or go to dinner?’ Things that are kind of taken for…

“The argument throughout both of the sessions emphasized that the pandemic had really devastating financial effects on low and middle income student loan borrowers,” Josh Rovenger, senior attorney in the Economic Justice Practice Group at The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland and fellow at advocacy group Student Borrower Protection Center, told reporters after the arguments concluded. “And that the risk of default upon returning to repayment without cancellation would be quite staggering.”

“Inside the Supreme Court there are technical arguments on standing and the major questions doctrine, but it’s important to remember the faces of the borrowers impacted by the court’s judgment,” Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC), a borrower advocacy group, told Yahoo Finance. “Their financial lives are at stake, making payments from budgets that are already stretched too thin. Borrowers are counting on Biden’s student loan forgiveness.”

On Tuesday, a coalition of advocacy groups including the Student Borrower Protection Center, Student Debt Crisis Center, We, The 45 Million, Rise, and the NAACP are participating in the People’s Rally for Student Debt Cancellation to urge the Supreme Court to uphold student-debt relief, and according to the NAACP, 500 to 1,000 students are attending.

Mike Pierce, the executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, joins CBS News’ Lilia Luciano and Lana Zak to discuss the importance of President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, as the the Supreme Court hears arguments on the policy.

“It’s interesting that we’ve seen other courts, which are not seen as liberal courts, side with the president,” Persis Yu, deputy executive director at Student Borrower Protection Center, told CNBC Make It in November. “I think it’s through a very extraordinary reading of standing law and the authority of the courts that they came to this decision.”

Mike Pierce, the founder and executive director of the Student Borrowers Protection Center – one of several advocacy organizations rallying – said he believed “the court will side with 40 million people”. On the rightwing challenges to the loan relief plan, Pierce said: “This is just another example of Republican officials using the courts to play politics. These are President Biden’s political opponents. Canceling student debt is wildly popular, particularly with President Biden’s…

“The court must see these lawsuits as the partisan sham they really are and protect the Biden administration’s historic relief plan,” said Ben Kaufman, director of research and investigations at the Student Borrower Protection Center. “Borrowers deserve better than to be treated like political pawns — lives and livelihoods are at stake.”