WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 19: U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos listens during a cabinet meeting … [+] in the East Room of the White House on May 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. Earlier in the day President Trump met with members of the Senate GOP. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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President-Elect Joe Biden has announced his nominee for Secretary of Education to replace Betsy DeVos, who has led the U.S. Department of Education for President Trumps entire term.
Biden will nominate Dr. Miguel A. Cardona for the position. Cardona currently is the Connecticut Education Commissioner, and has three decades of experience as a public school educator and administrator. He would be the first Latino to lead the U.S. Department of Education.
“In Miguel Cardona, America will have an experienced and dedicated public school teacher leading the way at the Department of Education ensuring that every student is equipped to thrive in the economy of the future, that every educator has the resources they need to do their jobs with dignity and success, and that every school is on track to reopen safely,” Biden said in a statement on Tuesday.
DeVos has been a controversial figure during her tenure leading the U.S. Department of Education, and she has frequently clashed with consumer rights groups and student loan borrower advocates over her management of the Departments sprawling student loan and federal student aid system.
When DeVos took over the U.S. Department of Education in 2017, her administration tried to rewrite the rules governing Borrower Defense to Repayment, a loan forgiveness program with regulations formally established for the first time during the Obama administration. Advocates accused DeVos of holding up the processing of 160,000 applications, and in subsequent litigation, argued that DeVos was violating federal rules and court orders regarding to the program. Most recently, a federal court admonished DeVos for the Departments issuance of blanket denials to applicants, often with minimal legal reasoning.
DeVos has also been criticized for her handling of student loan servicing and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, as well as her hands-off approach to regulating for-profit schools, some of which advocates argue have engaged in predatory practices. DeVos has publicly railed against broad policy ideas such as student loan forgiveness and debt-free college.
Consumer rights organizations and student loan borrower advocates expressed cautious optimism about Dr. Cardona.
The Betsy DeVos era at the Department of Education is over, and so are her attacks against students, parents, and student loan borrowers, said Natalia Abrams, executive director of Student Debt Crisis. The nomination of Miguel Cardona for Education Secretary brings the prospect of hope that existing student debt relief programs will be implemented as the law intended.
This is a new day for student borrowers, said the Project on Predatory Student Lending in a statement. For too long, for-profit students voices and legal rights have been ignored by the Secretary of Education. We have every hope that will change under Secretary Miguel Cardona. The Biden-Harris administration, under the leadership of new Secretary Cardona, has the opportunity to listen to for-profit college students and make a difference for them on Day One.
Advocates are pushing Biden to take significant action on student debt early in his term. Student loan relief has become more of an urgent issue in light of Congresss failure to include an extension of the moratorium on federal student loan payments in its most recent stimulus bill. That moratorium is scheduled to expire on January 31, just 11 days after Biden would be sworn in.
Its deeply disappointing that Congress did not act to extend the federal student loan suspension in the [stimulus] relief bill, said Americans for Financial Reform in a statement. This increases the urgency for Biden to act, both by extending the pause on payments and by cancelling federal student loan debt.
While Biden has expressed general support for broad student loan forgiveness, he has sidestepped questions about a specific plan, and has not indicated whether or not he would enact broad student debt cancellation through executive action.
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