NORFOLK, Va - President Biden's plan to forgive federal student loans has been blocked temporarily. Friday night, the U.S. Appeals Court put a temporary block on the plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt. Back in August, the president announced his administration would cancel up to $20,000 in education debt for millions of borrowers.
James Koch, the former president of Old Dominion University, said most of the money to cancel student loan debt would come from taxpayers.
"This provides an incentive to colleges and universities to increase their tuition," said Koch, who is currently an economics professor at ODU. "If Uncle Sam is going to bail you out then why not do it? It's likely the federal government will increase its deficit and go into debt more."
If student loan cancellations go into effect, people who have already paid off their loans will not receive any incentives. Koch said this brings about a fairness issue.
"The people who actually saved, families and kids who went out and worked, they don’t get anything out of this," Koch said.
News 3 talked to one Norfolk resident who said the debt should not be canceled.
"I paid off all of my college loans out of my pocket," said Dennis Myer. "For me to have my tax dollars to pay everybody else’s loans off, I don’t like that."
Myer paid off his student loan twenty years ago.
Others are all for student loans being canceled.
"It’s a good thing," said Elijah Jenkins, who studies at ODU. "I’m a junior now. I never had to take out a loan until this year because out-of-state tuition is expensive."
About 22 million people have already applied for debt relief since the application opened on October 14th. Many of the legal challenges claim that the Biden administration does not have the legal authority to broadly cancel student loan debt.
