The Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Biden administration's student debt forgiveness plan means borrowers must start paying back their loans later this year. While it mainly impacts people who are already out of college, incoming students say the court's ruling affects them, too.
Melinda Carlisle is a high school student from Southeast Michigan. She's preparing to start her senior year and is still deciding which college she wants to attend. Carlisle has it narrowed down to five schools, one of which is the University of Cincinnati, so she decided to make the trip down to tour the campus.
Even though she hasn't started taking out loans for school yet, it's something she wishes she didn't have to worry about as much. If student debt forgiveness had gotten the green light, she'd be more confident about the possibility of more affordable higher education and loan forgiveness in her future.
"I think it's really scary honestly. Especially going into this really momentous year in my life knowing that there's so many changes happening and knowing that things that I thought were a possibility for myself may not be," Carlisle said. "It puts a lot of financial pressure to find scholarships and I don't want to pick a college just based on where I can get the most money from."
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She also points out that other decisions recently made by the Supreme Court — like ending affirmative action in college admissions — have her worried about the future of higher education in general.
"Seeing these big decisions is really frightening for me and kind of makes the search feel less exciting than it should be," Carlisle told WVXU.
She wants the country's highest court to make an effort to improve the state of higher education rather than creating more barriers, and some incoming freshmen at the University of Cincinnati feel the same way.
Aziza Forgiel is a student from Northern Kentucky who will be attending UC in the fall. Her decision to attend UC was an easy one because of the programs offered and how close it is to home. Forgiel says she considers herself fortunate to have a family that can afford to pay for her education, but worries the court's ruling on student debt might deter more of her peers from seeking out opportunities in college.
"If 90% of college students can't go through college paying it and college isn't even accessible to most people, I think that's an issue," Forgiel said.
A downward trend that 'may continue'
Ken Katkin, a law professor at Northern Kentucky University, says massive student loan debt didn't stop people from pursuing higher education in the past. Still, a further decline in college enrollment due to a growing number of labor opportunities after high school and the most recent Supreme Court decision may be possible.
"Most of the students who had loans took them out at a time when they thought they'd have to pay them and they still took them out anyhow," Katkin said. "I believe high school graduation rates to starting college have gone down a little bit and I think that trend may continue."
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of high school graduates who attend college has slowly been going down in recent years. In 2019, more than 66% of graduates went on to pursue higher education. Since then, it's dropped to 62% according to the most recent data.
Despite the ruling, Katkin says some loan forgiveness programs still exist, like income-driven debt repayment programs, and there are still technically ways for the Biden administration to cancel debt for many borrowers, but those options are unlikely to see success.
"You're not going to get the total quantity of debt relief that affects substantially all student debtors unless Congress authorizes it," Katkin said. "That won't happen, at least while we have the current Congress."
Payments for federal student loans will be due again this October.
