ABA Releases Survey on the Holistic Impact of Student Debt on Today’s Young Lawyer But Fails to Call for Holistic Solution: Abolition of Law School Tuition and Student Debt

Alt Text: Student behind past due bills

By: Grace Dokken-Smith

Grace Dokken-Smith is a 2L at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

In March of 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act initiating a moratorium on federal student loan payments.[1] A controversial U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos, issued a general statement that the moratorium and subsequent extension of the moratorium in December of 2020 would “help those that have been impacted” by the coronavirus.[2] Now, three months before the expiration of President Biden’s “final” moratorium extension, hundreds of thousands of students in higher education are still impacted by the coronavirus without help on the horizon.[3]

For underrepresented law students, the false hope for debt relief “post-pandemic” was in many ways exacerbated in September as the American Bar Association (“ABA”) hosted its first “Student Debt Week of Action.”[4] Beginning one day before the release of the ABA Young Lawyers Division (“YLD”) 2021 Student Debt Survey, the “Week of Action” included pointed words from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren.[5] Notably, the controversy as to whether President Biden has the authority to cancel student debt governed by the Higher Education Act of 1965 was essentially dispelled. Senator Schumer stated that President Biden could alleviate federal student loan debt “with the flick of a pen.”[6] This statement was made on the first day of presentations and set the stage for a week of half–measure solutions that remain questionably legal.[7]

In the last two years, the ABA YLD Student Debt Surveys asked law students and young lawyers about their student debt, including how much debt they have accrued, impacts of the debt, and concludes with recommendations to improve the issues described in the respective reports. The 2020 YLD Student Debt Survey recommendations seemed to create an outline for ways the ABA would lobby for, foster, and promote greater representation and relief for law students with federal loans in the year 2021.[8] The 2020 YLD advocated for addressing underlying issues in legal education, alternative loan models, and elimination of the “Undue Hardship” student loan discharge standard.[9] Additionally, the YLD worked to address the effects of legal education costs on diversity in the legal profession and the effects of debt on mental health.[10]

This September, during what felt like a response to these 2020 recommendations, Senators Schumer and Warren assured attorneys and law students that President Biden has the authority to take executive action to broadly cancel federal student loan debt.[11] Senate Majority Whip, Dick Durbin, and Senator John Cornyn also advocated for the effectiveness of their bipartisan effort to eliminate the “Undue Hardship” student loan bankruptcy standard via their Fresh Start Through Bankruptcy Act.[12] Finally, the American Psychological Association discussed mental health, and a number of individuals discussed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.[13] While these programs, messages, and efforts by the ABA are noted, law students energized by these initiatives are essentially led off a cliff when they scroll down to the recommendations of the ABA YLD based on the results of the 2021 debt survey.

The ABA YLD sought to create a 2021 survey that would inquire into the “holistic” impact of student debt on young lawyers today.[14] Of the 1,750 ABA YLD members that received a copy of the survey in April 2021, 1,347 members responded.[15] While the survey asked respondents about the impacts of student debt on their emotional well-being, ability to start a family, and work in their desired field, there were some astounding results from one racial group.[16] The 2021 YLD study included “Indigenous” as a race category for the first time.[17] The enrollment of Native American and Indigenous law students is often misreported on Law School Admission Council and ABA data collection.[18] Factors ranging “from racist laws and policies to cultural stigma and erasure” produces data that grossly undermines “one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups among law students . . .”[19] Those that identified as “Indigenous” on the YLD student debt survey constituted 2.2% of member respondents and notably represented the largest group of respondents to report that they have “No or Little Confidence” that they could find the money to pay for a financial emergency that cost about $1,000.[20] Indigenous respondents also constituted the largest racial classification that reported an inability to provide sufficient healthcare for themselves or their families and were the largest racial classification that owed more than $10,000 in bar prep debt.[21]

While it may feel like a small number of people, the fact that a group that has never been represented on the YLD survey consistently reports challenges to meet basic needs and prepare for small emergencies should sound alarms through the ABA. An alarm should sound as to what an even more inclusive survey might show, and an alarm should sound as portions of our legal community are not only still underrepresented in the year 2021 but are struggling to survive.

While free legal education and student debt cancellation may seem completely absurd and radical, the ABA must sustain the call to abolish costs and debt associated with a legal education. More than that, the ABA must, in the year 2022, strive to prove the legality of executive action on tuition and debt abolition through consistent calls to action and still more holistic representation of traditionally underrepresented law students and attorneys.

.

.

  1. Zack Friedman, Trump: No Student Loan Payments Through January 31, 2021, Forbes (Dec. 5, 2020), https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/12/05/trump-pauses-student-loan-payments-through-january-31-2021/?sh=ed2af0546b11 [https://perma.cc/F7KQ-AWAK]. ↑

  2. Id. ↑

  3. Adam S. Minsky, Biden Administration Will Extend Student Loan Pause To 2022, While Advocates Urge Cancellation, Forbes (Aug. 6, 2021), https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2021/08/06/biden-administration-will-extend-student-loan-pause-to-2022/ [https://perma.cc/8YSL-5D77]. ↑

  4. Student Debt Week of Action Schedule, Am. Bar Ass’n (Sept. 20, 2021), https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental_legislative_work/grassroots-action-center/ABA_Day_Digital/student-debt/student-debt-week-schedule/ [https://perma.cc/L8B9-WGSC]. ↑

  5. See id. ↑

  6. American Bar Ass’n, Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, YouTube (Sept. 18, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDrZSjMKcTc&t=13s [https://perma.cc/FS74-3RDH] (Senator Schumer said, “I believe it’s within his [Biden’s] authority”); American Bar Ass’n, Senator Elizabeth Warren, YouTube (Sept. 20, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI7DCqEaizc [https://perma.cc/MWZ5-EGD8] (Senator Warren stated that canceling up to $50,000 in student loan debt is “one of the most effective executive actions Biden can take all on his own to kick start an economic recovery and advance racial justice.”). ↑

  7. American Bar Ass’n, Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, YouTube (Sept. 18, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDrZSjMKcTc&t=13s [https://perma.cc/D62B-BJUN]. ↑

  8. American Bar Ass’n Young Law. Div., 2020 Law School Student Loan Debt 1 (2020), https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/young_lawyers/2020-student-loan-survey.pdf [https://perma.cc/FHA6-HDTJ]. ↑

  9. Id. at 25–26. ↑

  10. Id. at 28–29. ↑

  11. S. Res. 46, 117th Cong. (2021). Senator Schumer is the sponsor of Senate Resolution 46 calling on the President to “take executive action to broadly cancel Federal student loan debt.” ↑

  12. American Bar Ass’n, Senators Durbin and Cornyn, YouTube (Sept. 20, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJDcFI6a25Q [https://perma.cc/A634-8DLR]. ↑

  13. See generally Student Debt Week of Action Schedule, Am. Bar Ass’n (Sept. 20, 2021), https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental_legislative_work/grassroots-action-center/ABA_Day_Digital/student-debt/student-debt-week-schedule/ [https://perma.cc/ED4L-WHJP]. ↑

  14. See Am. Bar Ass’n Young Law. Div., Student Debt: The Holistic Impact on Today’s Young Lawyer (2021), https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/young_lawyers/2021-student-loan-survey.pdf [https://perma.cc/HNG2-2BC9]. ↑

  15. Id. at 35. ↑

  16. Id. at 1–20. ↑

  17. See id. at 2. ↑

  18. Gabriel Kuris, What Native American Law Applicants Should Know, U.S. News & World Rep. (March 8, 2021), https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/law-admissions-lowdown/articles/what-native-american-and-indigenous-law-applicants-should-know [https://perma.cc/VD5N-T7XY]. ↑

  19. Id. ↑

  20. Am. Bar Ass’n Young Law. Div., supra note 14, at 2, 15.   ↑

  21. Id. at 5, 17. ↑