These are some key takeaways EAB gathered in their latest meta-report that creates a comprehensive picture of higher education’s future college cohort: “Gen P.” It draws from conversations with over 20,000 high school students, counselors, parents, EAB partners and college enrollment teams.

“Gen P” students have been molded by a world event that few can compare to, and thus they are unique in their college preferences. EAB aims to identify who they are so higher ed leaders can identify their needs—and win their selection.

More from UB: Digital credentials: Higher education’s new frontier

1. Gen P wants higher ed to be vocal about mental health offerings

In the 2021-22 academic year, 87% of public schools reported that the pandemic negatively impacted students’ socioemotional development, according to the CDC. Similarly, EAB reports that depression and anxiety have steadily increased in that period, partially due to their uptick in social media use and online interactivity. The issue has gotten so bad the U.S. Surgeon General believes social media deserves a warning label as youth mental health has become “the defining public health issue of our time.”

With the declining quality of youth mental health coalescing with their poorly matured socio-emotional development, 22% of students in 2023 opt out of college because they are “not mentally ready,” according to EAB. That’s an 8% rise compared to 2021. Moreover, the rates of first-generation and low-income students reporting this are higher.

2. Less confident about college success

EAB reports that 73% of counselors believe the pandemic weakened their students’ academic preparation at least moderately. Their concerns aren’t unfounded: Average assessment scores between 2020 and 2022 have dropped by 5%, the largest ever recorded by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Students’ academic troubles interweave with their stunted social and mental development, making them feel as if they might not belong if they pursued a route in higher education. Consequently, 26% of students are worried about successfully pursuing a degree, which is one of the leading issues for turning a cold shoulder to college.

3. Holding higher ed in lower regard

From 2017 to 2022, freshman enrollment has decreased across three major sectors of higher education: public 4-year (2.9%), public 2-year (22%) and private 4-year (1.8%). While enrollment seems to have either increased or steadied in 2022, the 5-year decline is driven by a massive drop in 2020.

Despite leveling off last year, high school student sentiment for high education has become undeniably worse. Specifically, a fifth of students (20%) now agree “college isn’t worth the cost.” In 2019, less than a tenth agreed with that statement (8%).

And although higher ed’s reputation has taken a massive hit since the pandemic, its enrollment has long since declined. A separate report EAB conducted between 2016 and 2020 found that the rate of college-going high school graduates declined by 10%.

Among the top four reasons students are deciding against college, three have to do with the bottom line: cost.

Top factors students are deterred from attending college

• Cost concerns/debt (70%)
• Costs outweighing earning potential (34%)
• Academic readiness (33%)
• Cost of living (31%)

Gen P is only willing to enroll in higher education if it provides quantitative financial outcomes. This may explain why enrollment in liberal arts colleges has sharply declined over the same period as general enrollment in higher ed has.

4. Hunger for in-person events

The rate of prospective students attending campus visits has bounced back to 2019 levels, and while college fair attendance hasn’t entirely recuperated, they have increased. Similarly, in-person events have increased by 38% in 2022, while virtual event show rates have decreased by 58%.

The most popular recruitment event preferred by students were medium-sized, on-campus events with 50-100 attendees.

While virtual events have decreased significantly, EAB believes colleges should keep hybrid events for low-income students who do not have the time or money to attend events in person.

5. Digital engagement demand

A college’s website can make or break students’ esteem for an institution. For example, nine out of ten prospects make a point of visiting the website of a college they’re considering. Among them, 89% agree that “A well-designed website will improve” their opinion of a college, and 81% agree that “a poorly designed website will negatively affect” their opinion of a college.

While nearly three-quarters of students reported engaging with colleges via social media in 2023, an 11% bump over two years, students still prefer email as their main communication channel.

6. Students’ search behavior is shifting

Students are beginning their college search way later than four years ago. While the rate of students starting their college search their spring sophomore year was 67% in 2019, it was down 40% in 2023. However, EAB is unconvinced that this is a long-term trend, as the pandemic could have disrupted their priorities.

One long-term trend regarding students’ college selection process is that they visit colleges later. EAB posits that one possible reason is that students are waiting to know whether they were accepted and if their financial aid package is worthy enough to consider attending.

Similarly, Black and Hispanic/Latinx students are more likely than any other race/ethnicity to apply to an institution for being test optional. This is likely due to professional organizations purporting that standardized tests contain inherent biases against these demographics.

Trends exacerbated by the pandemic

Most of Gen P’s traits did not arise in a vacuum. EAB believes that some of their most significant characteristics result from long-developing trends that the pandemic helped push to the forefront. Among them are:

• Mental health concerns
• Academic achievement
• Equity gaps
• Student value of higher ed

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However, one member of Ohio’s American Association of University Professors chapter referred to quantifying students’ future earnings potential as “problematic,” according to the Dayton Daily News. The University of Cincinnati professor testified that he supports greater financial transparency, but his concerns do hearken back to the turbulence many proponents of greater cost transparency in higher education have faced.

Why are sweeping measures for transparency challenging to gain support for?

Unhelpful information

Data submitted by colleges is rarely strong enough to help parents and students make effective decisions. When former President Donald Trump called for similar initiatives to make higher education more transparent, many of the data colleges posted were found to be misleading or inaccurate. College Scorecard cannot track current student data and must rely on information from student loan borrowers due to a 2008 Congressional decision. Aside from being the partial truth, colleges’ self-submitted data is not usually refined for the average parent or student and often becomes too technical to use appropriately.

“The information we need to provide has to be accurate, has to be verifiable, has to be comparable. It has to be visible to students, and it has to be usable,” said Debbie Cochrane, executive vice president of the Institute for College Access & Success, according to The Hechinger Report. “Misleading information is not helpful. Perfectly valid information that can’t be found is also not helpful.”

Aside from the college information being impractical, some colleges have a track record of submitting bad information. Columbia and Temple University have been caught submitting erroneous data to U.S. News and World Report to pad their rankings.

Lack of use

Initiatives that do try to track critical measures for prospective students don’t seem to gain much traffic. One report in 2016 found that College Scorecard underperformed among users. Similarly, two state-driven initiatives have also achieved meek results. One partnership between the University of Texas and the U.S. Census Bureau to provide better earnings data did not gain popularity two years after its launch. And Virginia’s wide-ranging database is left mostly unused.

“I think some fraction of students use the data,” said Tod Massa, policy analytics director at the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, according to The Hechinger Report. But “how many high school students are actually going to think to go to a state agency website to research colleges and universities?”

How have recent bills similar to Ohio’s fared?

At the federal level, three U.S. Senators are reviving the College Transparency Act after it stalled out last year. If approved, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) would be responsible for securing student data and generating postgraduation outcomes reports with the help of federal agencies. Creating a user-friendly website that parents and students can easily navigate is also top of mind. Additionally, the College Transparency Act would lift the 2008 Congress ban that hindered College Scorecard’s data accuracy.

At the state level, the Colorado General Assembly has recently passed a bill appropriating $3 million to the department of higher education to create a public-facing data system that allows prospective students to compare and contrast “postsecondary success measures and workforce success measures” among different institutions. Another eight states have enacted some form of collection and distribution of college data, according to The Hechinger Report. Among them are Arkansas, Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

However, one proposed bill in New York stalled out last year and has yet to be reintroduced.

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After surveying over 2,000 students in March, Gallup has discovered that 71% nationwide agree that the degree they are receiving is worth the cost. Only 8% of currently enrolled students believed their degree’s value did not match it.

Private non-profit institutions had the most polarizing responses compared to public students. Private non-profit institutions had the highest percentage of students to both strongly agree (41%) and strongly disagree (4%) that their degree’s value matched its costs. This is partially due to public institution students being more on the fence about its value than taking an opinion.

The driving factor leading to public and private nonprofit institutions students’ high regard for their degree is their trust that it adequately prepares them for life after college. Three-quarters of all students agreed with this statement, with 38% percent strongly agreeing.

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The top seven factors boosting students’ confidence in their degree:

1. Preparation for life after college
2. The ability to express oneself freely on campus
   • Several states have begun implementing initiatives to boost constructive discourse in light of higher education’s increased political polarization.
3. The extent to which students have the opportunity to interact with people with different views
4. Perceptions of physical safety
5. The extent to which professors care about students as people
6. Perceptions of belonging
   • Mental health remains a top concern for student wellness on campuses. Although colleges and even the federal government are employing more robust efforts to address the issue, students are still most likely to seek belonging and help from their peers more than official resources.
7. Admissions selectivity of the institution according to IPEDS
   • Despite this being a solid factor in students’ valuation of a degree, the Gallup report noted that U.S. News’ college ranking was not essential to them.

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Utilizing data from the Department of Education and compiled by The HEA Group and College Scorecard, four years after graduating with one of these 25 bachelor’s degree programs students earn less than $38,000 on average, or just about what an employee with a high school diploma makes, according to Indeed. Almost 900 non-profit institutions offer one of these bachelor’s degrees.*

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Low-earning degrees

All in all, 867 institutions offer such bachelor’s degree programs.* Programs in drama and stagecraft, the fine arts and music were the most prevalent degrees in this category. Seven of the 25 degrees on the list are related to theological study, accounting for 62 institutions in total.

* Note: Some institutions offer more than one of these academic programs listed. For example, Adelphi University offers “Fine and Studio Arts,” “Drama/Theatre Arts and Stagecraft” and “Dance.” This overlap reduces the number of non-profit institutions offering such bachelor’s programs.

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“Social media is talking about all the celebrities sending their students to HBCUs. We’ve always produced the greatest and the best, but for whatever reason it’s gotten a lot more attention recently,” says Danisha Williams, director of admissions at Lincoln University of Missouri. “You got Chris Pual repping HBCU jerseys when he’s warming up for games.”

As fortunate as these institutions have been to receive handsome endowments from public figures and witness a growth of young, proud Black men and women embracing the HBCU experience, approaching these gifts from a financial point of view may lend you to consider whether the well is bound to dry.

“We don’t know the pace at which they will continue. It’s important to be cognizant of what you’re planning to do long-term with those dollars as well as always minding where your enrollment falls, which directly translates to tuition revenue,” says La Shaun King, an assurance partner at BDO who works with higher ed clients. “The amount of revenue you have at your disposal speaks to what you’re able to do.”

Moreover, CARES Act funds will also be unavailable to spend by the end of the school year—June 30, 2023—according to the Department of Education.

Anthony Jones, vice president of enrollment management and student experience at Bethune-Cookman University, is also confronting this reality.

“We want to grow in a way that speaks to the longevity of the institution and not just an immediate shot in the arm,” says Jones. “We want to make sure that we understand what portion of our enrollment is coming from the overall uptick in HBCU enrollment and what portion of our enrollment growth is coming from our own efforts in terms of how we are managing admissions, marketing, retention efforts, and so forth.”

Here are four initiatives Lincoln and Bethune-Cookman are taking to ensure their HBCUs can turn their unexpected spark into a sustained legacy.

More from UB: ‘The anti-CRT crusade’: 5 trends that point to its impact on education in 2023

Develop competitive programs with high ROI

Jones views the function of Bethune-Cookman with a pragmatic lens. “How well does our degree serve you once you leave the institution?” he asks.

Parents and students are now asking for—and expecting—a return on their college degree more than ever, according to Jones. Thanks to a 34% increase in net tuition revenue, Bethune-Cookman can now invest in expanding academic offerings that match market demand.

King also believes academic programs at HBCUs can become more attractive by leveraging corporate partnerships to develop internship, networking and training opportunities that offer career-focused students relevant training and hirable workforce skills.

For example, NASCAR recently tapped Bethune-Cookman for an internship program that allows participants to develop a marketing activation while managing a set budget provided by NASCAR. Additionally, Alabama A&M University’s partnership with Google landed one of its students a full-time position on their software development side.

Schools with a successful track record with corporate partnership, King wages, can be leveraged by enrollment offices to recruit strong high school prospects. It can also drum up more donor support because it appeals to a school’s accomplishments rather than just its cultural importance.

Boost student outreach

Williams noted how an increased marketing budget allowed Lincoln to develop virtual recruitment affairs to let prospective students know of their accomplishments, which in turn has elevated Lincoln’s student outreach and enrollment efforts.

The Missouri-based university has also hired five remote recruiters across Chicago, Kansas City and St. Louis to boost the school’s visibility for prospective students not readily in the vicinity. She believes the initiative has expanded the school’s reach five times more than their former in-house formula.

Maximize the student experience

Following Bethune-Cookman’s best freshman recruitment class in more than 10 years, the school needs to figure out how it can ensure over 1,000 new students find a comfortable home. “One thing the university needs to be smart in doing is continuing to invest in the infrastructure that’s necessary to house and accommodate the growth that we have,” says Jones. So far, Bethune-Cookman has renovated several floors of its primary residence hall.

They are also looking to increase staffing levels to provide deeper support services to students. Financial services, admissions and academic counseling are all seeing a more robust base of individuals dedicated to helping students. However, Williams at Lincoln noted that turnover remains a pertinent issue. She says she is working diligently to keep staff in place by maintaining daily rapport and words of affirmation.

Homecoming, a staple experience at HBCUs, also experienced a boost in funding. Nationally renowned rapper Rick Ross performed at “The Greatest Tailgate of All Time’’ party at Bethune-Cookman last fall.

Tackle mental health

From approaching student life to rethinking how it delivers school pedagogy, Bethune-Cookman is staring at a phenomenon that affects every single one of its students from its freshman to its seniors, largely contributed to the pandemic.

“Dollars and attention shifted towards ensuring that can be met and we want to get better at it,” Jones says. “We’re certainly not perfect, but we have a goal to get as good as possible in that particular area to really help our students and their families work through what has been a very difficult and very challenging time for all of us.”

Bethune-Cookman still largely relies on its in-house counseling service by ensuring it’s well staffed.

One strong signature of the HBCU experience may provide these students a certain reprieve from the mental health difficulty experienced across the country. Specifically, they benefit from a well-known family atmosphere.

“Students and staff feel supported, they have someone they can talk to. We are that family environment that our students are looking for and can depend on. They can go to class, but what happens after class? If there’s no one there to take you to McDonald’s or Walmart, that can be a lot for an 18- or 19-year-old.”

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According to Burning Glass’ data published by The Wall Street Journal, a degree in finance from some of the country’s most esteemed private institutions can earn a student at least $30,000 more than the median B.A. graduate. Specifically, an MIT graduate can earn almost $50,000 more, practically a salary itself. Comparatively speaking, graduates from the University of Chicago, which ranks 10th on the private college list, still makes more at a $31,833 premium than a graduate from the University of Virginia, whose average premium is $19,676.

Burning Glass used the company-ratings website Glassdoor to calculate the average salary employees earn 10 years removed from graduating, and they analyzed data on experience and pay from Lightcast, a labor-market data firm as well.

The Ivy Leagues dominate the private college list, taking up five out of ten top spots among private schools. New York had the greatest number of schools featured across both lists, among them are Columbia University in the City of New York, Binghamton University, CUNY Bernard M Baruch College, Stony Brook University and SUNY at Albany. Out of these five, Middlebury College is the only private school.

Here is the list of both private and public colleges, abridged down from the report’s top 20.

Top 10 Private Colleges

Top 10 Public Colleges

More from UB: Why colleges are updating historic buildings to suit the modern student)

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Unlocking Opportunity: The Post-Graduation Success and Equity Network will be working with schools across Texas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and more to re-tool their programs conducive to valuable degrees. The Aspen Institute, in partnership with the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teacher College, Columbia University, leads the initiative.

“The Unlocking Opportunity initiative will provide Laramie County Community College an amazing opportunity to access world-class resources, benchmark ourselves with the very best institutions, and evaluate the work we are doing to prepare our students for the workforce and continuing their pursuit of advanced degrees,” said college president Joe Schaffer, whose school was selected.

Both Shaeffer and Josh Wyner, founder and executive director of the Aspen College Excellence Program, emphasized how this initiative would positively impact first-generation, low-income, and minority students, who are historically the least likely to enroll in programs that result in strong outcomes, according to an Unlocking Opportunity press release.

“It is time for community colleges to turn their attention to increasing the value of the credentials they deliver, especially for the large numbers of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students who rely so heavily on community colleges to provide a path to a better life,” said Wyner.

A community college degree that carries significant weight into the workforce or better leverages students’ applications applying to universities promotes equity across the socioeconomic spectrum, which aligns with the missions of the Aspen Institute and CCRC.

More from UB: What keeps students enrolled in community colleges? Here’s what they say

In the first three years of Unlocking Opportunity, the Aspen Insitute and CCRC will be intensely involved with community colleges providing them with cutting-edge resources to set concrete goals, plan reform strategies, and implement changes.

The initiative will also equip advisers with data-driven insight to better guide students on their future, even capable of breaking the data down by race, gender, and ethnicity. Using labor market data from various sources, CCRC and the Aspen Institute will help community colleges categorize enrollment figures to discern how many of their students are enrolling in programs that are aligned with high-wage occupations. For students looking to use a community college degree to enroll in university, data can be categorized to show pre-major transfer programs that are most likely to help students get accepted.

For the next three years, the Aspen Institute and CCRC will be hands-off, tracking the effectiveness of the changes community colleges made and using that data to inform how they guide higher education leaders in the future.

“We’re excited to work with these colleges to help them evaluate and strengthen their programs and see which lead to great outcomes: either good jobs right away or via completion of a bachelor’s degree,” said Davis Jenkins, senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center. “This requires intensive work, and I cannot imagine a better group of institutions from which we can learn and share lessons with the field on how to deliver excellent and equitable programs.”

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That said, more colleges and universities raised tuition and fees in 2022-23 than in the previous two years, the College Board reports in its latest look at financial aid trends.

Many colleges and universities froze tuition for the two school years most severely disrupted by the pandemic. In 2022-23,  average sticker prices and fees are 1.8% higher for public four-year in-state students and 3.5% higher for private nonprofit institutions. At two-year institutions, college tuition and fees rose by 1.6% for in-district students.

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But accounting for 8% inflation, tuition and fees actually dropped in all three sectors even though private institutions hiked their sticker prices more than public schools did, the College Board reports. Here are their key findings regarding average college tuition:

• Public four-year in-state average tuition: $10,940—$190 higher than in 2021-22 (1.8% increase before adjusting for inflation)
• Public four-year out-of-state: $28,240—$620 higher than in 2021-22 (2.2% before adjusting for inflation)
• Private nonprofit four-year: $39,400—$1,330 higher than in 2021-22 (3.5% before adjusting for inflation)
• Public two-year in-district: $3,860—$60 higher than in 2021-22 (1.6% before adjusting for inflation)

How financial aid is impacting college tuition

The average tuition and fees paid by students have been declining at public and private four-year schools and two-year institutions over the last decade. In 2022-23, the average in-state student paid $2,250 to attend a four-year school while the average tuition and fees at private institutions were $14,630.

The bad news is that Pell Grants and other federal aid programs are being hammered by inflation. Pell Grants declined by
36% ($14.6 billion) while total federal grant aid decreased by 32% in inflation-adjusted dollars between 2011-12 and 2021-22, the College Board found.

Here are the other important details administrators need to know about financial aid:

• In 2021-22, undergraduate students received an average of $15,330 per full-time equivalent (FTE) student in financial aid.
• Pell Grant expenditures peaked in 2010-11 at $44.3 billion (in 2021 dollars) and plunged to $25.9 billion in 2021-22—a 42% decline.
• 9.3 million students received Pell Grants in 2010-11 but only 6.1 million did in 2021-22—a 35% decline.
• The average Pell Grant amount peaked at $4,760 in 2010-11 and slipped to $4,250 in 2021-22.
• Between 2011-12 and 2021-22, federal loans to undergraduates fell by 50%, while federal loans to graduate students declined by 9%.

The third major trend the College Board analyzed was a steady decline in the amount of money college students are borrowing. That number grew rapidly between 2006-07 and 2011-12 but declined by nearly 50% in 2021-22 when students and parents borrowed $94.7 billion (compared to $141.6 billion a decade earlier). A few more facts to know about debt:

• 51% of public, four-year bachelor’s degree recipients graduated with an average federal debt level of $21,400 per borrower in 2021-22.
• 53% of private, nonprofit bachelor’s degree recipients finished school with an average federal debt level of $22,600.
• As of March 2022, 33% of borrowers owed less than $10,000 and 21% of borrowers owed between $10,000 and $20,000 in federal loans. These borrowers held 4% and 8% of the outstanding federal debt, respectively.
• As of March 2022, 24% of the $1.62 trillion outstanding federal loan balance was held by borrowers 50 and older, up from 18% in 2017.

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That is the transformational plan unveiled by Centre College in Kentucky, which is taking the Schuler Education Foundation contribution and the other large gift to change young lives through Schuler’s Access Initiative. Along with a handful of other institutions, including Barnard College, the College of the Holy Cross, Scripps College and Trinity College, the infusion will help provide more opportunities to deserving low-to-middle-income and undocumented students.

“This investment from the Schuler Education Foundation will enable us to strengthen our already robust support for talented students, regardless of their family’s circumstances,” said Mark Nunnelly, chair of the Centre College Board of Trustees. “With outstanding financial aid, academic preparation and career support, there is no limit to what our students can achieve.”

Centre College, one of the most esteemed liberal arts schools in the nation, had just announced an initiative to double the number of first-generation students after receiving a $10 million gift from another anonymous donor and a $1 million grant from the American Talent Initiative to join its Kessler Scholars Collaborative. The latest mission will give 120 new students in the next 10 years the chance to affordably attend the college. The sticker price for tuition, fees, room and board last year at Centre before aid and scholarships totaled around $60,000.

One of Centre’s goals in its strategic plan, which dovetails with the quest to boost first-gen students, is trying to increase its pool of Pell-eligible enrollees. Over the past eight admissions cycles, Centre has grown that group by around 7%, but hopes to have one-fourth of its student population receiving Pells by 2027. The fact that the federal government has in its plans an opportunity to double the amount of maximum grants under the program by 2029, could improve access even further.

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At Trinity College in Harford, Conn., the news of a $20 million grant from Schuler was met with great excitement. It plans to raise an additional $40 million to support curricula and financial aid tailored to low-income and undocumented students. Trinity, whose total cost for a residential on-campus experience is close to $80,000, has helped defray that by boosting financial aid packages by 60% over the past seven years. Like Centre, it has bigger goals, and that is to get to $100 million raised to go toward that aid.

“This is a remarkable moment for our college as we look toward our bicentennial year,” Trinity President Joanne Berger-Sweeney wrote to the community. “When this matching grant is completed, Trinity will become more accessible to deserving and talented students who come from families for whom affordability is a significant barrier. This initiative will open doors to individuals who may have thought that an outstanding liberal arts education was out of reach.”

Union College in New York is planning to add 40 more Pell-eligible students in the next four years.

“Union is one of fewer than 100 schools that meets the full demonstrated need of students,” said President David Harris. “That means that we reach a point where we just don’t have any additional financial aid to offer new students. Each year, as a result, we are simply unable to admit all the exceptional students who need financial aid. That’s why I’m so excited about the Schuler Access Initiative. As a Pell Grant recipient myself, I know firsthand what it’s like to think, ‘Can I attend this school? Can I afford it?’ ”

Those three are part of a group of 20 liberal arts institutions that will be selected by Schuler and include previous recipients Bates College, Carleton College, Kenyon College, Tufts University and Union College. All told, Schuler’s $500 million and the funding from schools will total $1 billion to serve students over the next decade.

“Our family focuses on underrepresented, undocumented and low-income students, because we know that they are smart, capable, hard-working, ambitious students who, when given equal access to opportunities, do great things to benefit our communities,” said Tanya Schuler Sharman, co-founder of the Schuler Education Foundation. “We are thrilled to partner with five additional top colleges that have shown their desire to broaden their support for these students by meeting 100 percent of need for all four years and have proven that they have great graduation rates for all students.”

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There couldn’t be a worse time to implement a student loan forgiveness program, and it should seriously be reconsidered: That’s the message nearly half of the nation’s governors have conveyed to President Joe Biden, who announced the cancellation of up to $10,000 in student loan debt for low to middle-income borrowers and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients in August, stating, “Both of these targeted actions are for families who need it the most.”

In a joint letter sent to Biden yesterday, 22 governors expressed their concerns about the program arguing the burden of debt has been shifted to the taxpayer: “…we fundamentally oppose your plan to force American taxpayers to pay off the student loan debt of an elite few—a plan that is estimated to cost the American taxpayer more than $2,000 each or $600 billion total, a price the people of our states cannot afford.”

In addition, they say the plan would only worsen the economy and pose even more challenges for students. “At a time when inflation is sky high due to your unprecedented tax-and-spend agenda, your plan will encourage more student borrowing, incentivize higher tuition rates, and drive up inflation even further, negatively impacting every American.”

Over the last couple of weeks, rumors have surfaced that the GOP is preparing lawsuits to block Biden’s student debt plan.

According to the governors’ letter, President Biden simply lacks the Constitutional power to cancel student debt. “As president, you lack the authority to wield unilateral action to usher in a sweeping student loan cancellation plan, a position shared by leaders of your party,” the letter states. “Last year, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated, ‘People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.'”

Senate Democrats, however, are urging the Biden Administration to expand debt relief to include parents, arguing that “Parent PLUS borrowers have been left out.”

“We write to urge you to consider Parent PLUS borrowers in any administrative changes and executive actions you undertake to improve the Department of Education’s (Department’s) student loan programs and provide student loan relief,” a letter from Senate Democrats states.

The Education Department reportedly said that Parent PLUS borrowers will qualify for $20,000 in debt relief if they were directly awarded Pell grants. Otherwise, they will be eligible for the $10,000 in relief, assuming they meet the income eligibility requirements.

More from UB: Colleges lost nearly 300,000 transfers during first two years of COVID-19 pandemic

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