That Hurts
What to know: Student loan “forgiveness” hurts taxpayers because there’s simply no such thing as a free education.
The TPPF take: The best path forward on student loans is to use the tools already available to us, including income-driven repayment.
“As a policy matter, student loan forgiveness was terrible,” says TPPF’s Andrew Gillen. “As we’ve noted, the policy failed on logical and rhetorical, educational, economic, moral, political, and legal grounds. One example: It used the real financial struggles of a small portion of borrowers as an excuse to shower almost all college graduates with an unearned windfall.”
For more on student loans, click here.
Offshore but not Out of Mind
What to know: The nation’s largest planned wind farm has been given the go-ahead to start construction.
The TPPF take: TPPF is suing over a planned wind farm in nearby Rhode Island.
“The political pressure to implement offshore wind has been intense,” says TPPF’s Robert Henneke. “The Interior Department’s ‘Smart from the Start’ program fast-tracks offshore wind development, improperly granting permissions allowing foreign-owned energy companies to move forward despite the harms to our safety, our domestic industries and our environment.”
For more on offshore wind, click here.
Wait, What?
What to know: A diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officer at a California community college has sued her former employer. One of the reasons she was fired, she claims, is that she was the “wrong kind” of Black person, and wouldn’t use the term “Latinx.”
The TPPF take: Texas is fighting DEI in higher education, but the battle is just beginning.
“It would be hard to imagine anything that has been more harmful to minority and marginalized students than DEI,” says TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester. “The University of Michigan has the largest DEI program in the country. After a decade of DEI at Michigan, the largest university in the state, Michigan still has a student population that is less than 4% black even though African Americans make up 14% of the population.”
For more on DEI, click here.