Bigger decisions loom on forgiveness

WASHINGTON » As college graduates wait to see whether President Joe Biden will wipe out some of their student loan debt, his administration is taking a more limited step to address a fraud scandal at Corinthian Colleges, a forprofit chain that collapsed nearly a decade ago.

Anyone who enrolled in the company’s schools will have his or her federal student debt erased, clearing away $5.8 billion for more than 560,000 borrowers — the largest single loan discharge ever, according to the Education Department.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday called it a milestone in “a journey for justice for everyone who was defrauded” and will “put real money in the pockets of real people.” She made only a brief reference to lingering questions about the next steps on student loan debt. “As a nation, we have a lot more work to do on these issues,” she said.

Biden, as a candidate, promised to address the matter if elected, and he has expressed interest in canceling $10,000 per borrower. There’s been no word on how Biden will handle the issue, even with pressure building on him. The White House has suggested there would be some kind of income criteria that would prevent high earners from benefiting.

Debt payments were paused by President Donald Trump near the beginning of the pandemic, and Biden has kept the freeze in place while considering a more permanent solution.

Any decision carries political risks. Republicans accuse Biden of plotting an election-year giveaway. Activists are pushing him to cancel at least $50,000 per borrower, and anything less could disappoint them.

“President Biden, canceling $10,000 in student debt is like pouring a bucket of ice water on a forest fire,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

The announcement about Corinthian, which operated from 1995 to 2015, seeks to close the books on one of the most notorious cases of fraud in American higher education.

When Harris was California’s attorney general, she worked with the Obama administration to uncover how campuses were falsifying data on the success of graduates.