Each year, thousands of students in the nation graduate with degrees in agriculture and/or other related fields and join the industry. Now that the Biden-Harris administration’s Student Debt Relief Plan is facing major obstacles, this may impact many of our newest generation of agriculturalists.
In August of 2022, the current administration announced that up to $20,000 of outstanding student loans will be forgiven for borrowers depending on their circumstances. This program could help up to 40 million borrowers, and more than 16 million borrowers had already been approved for student debt relief by the U.S. Department of Education. Many of which include the nation’s newest farmers.
However as of October of 2022, their plan to help ease the burden of student debt has been put to a halt. Judge Mark T. Pittman, a federal judge from the North District of Texas who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, wrote that the program was a “complete usurpation” of congressional authority by the executive branch.
“In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone,” Pittman wrote. “Instead, we are ruled by a Constitution that provides for three distinct and independent branches of government.”
Now, the Supreme Court will not be setting arguments for this case approximately until late February or early March.
The fate of the Student Debt Relief plan is unknown to date, but it remains a constant worry for many recent graduates. According to the 2022 National Young Farmer Survey, the burden of student debt stands in the way of young farmers’ success. Approximately 38 percent of young farmers report having student loan debt, and 20 percent of young farmers said they did not take out additional loans to support or grow their farm businesses because of existing student loan debt.
As time passes, today’s farmers are looking at the future generations of agriculturalists to take their place and carry out the industry. But the cost of higher education may be making that reality harder to accomplish.
Not only is student loan debt making it difficult for young farmers to live comfortably, but it’s also a reason that young farmers decide to leave their farming careers. Thirty-nine percent of former young farmers said students loans were very or extremely challenging, compared with 26.9 percent of current young farmers.
Davon Goodwin of OTL Farms in North Carolina is one of many young farmers that were negatively affected by the weight of student debt.
“When I got started in farming, no one told me my student loans would be such a hurdle,” Goodwin said. “No one talks about student loans at a farm meeting. But the reality is that my student loans were standing in the way of my land purchase.”
Student debt also disproportionately affects agriculturalists of marginalized communities. The survey found that 62 percent of Black farmers reported having student debt, versus 36 percent of White farmers reporting so. Forty-five percent of Black farmers and 38 percent of indigenous farmers identified student loan debt as a top challenge, compared with 24.6 percent of White farmers.
This also affects first-generation college students greatly, as they are more likely to collect student debt compared to other students. First-generation students often don’t have access to resources that help them navigate everything that comes with college, including the finances of it. This often leads them to making uninformed decisions they believe are right, such as whether to take out a loan or not.
Higher education should be financially accessible, and one’s decision to start a career should not have to come with repercussions that lead people to regret or abandon their careers in agriculture altogether. Our newest generation of agriculturalists rely on college to achieve their career and personal goals. More importantly, many of them are relying on the Student Debt Relief Plan to help ease this burden.
If student debt continues to be an issue and the Supreme Court rejects this program, we may see an increase in the number of young farmers leaving the profession. Especially since the White House currently does not have a backup plan for student debt relief.
The fate of the Student Debt Relief Program won’t be known for at least a month from now. Until then, new agriculturists are going to have to hang tight until then, and hope for the best.
Saul Reyes served as the 2022 American Farmland Trust Agriculture Communications Intern at AGDAILY, with a focus on helping to amplify diversity and minority voices in agriculture. An FFA alum, Reyes is a graduate of California State University-Chico and double majored in plant and soil science and multicultural and gender studies, while minoring in intersectional Chicanx/Latinx studies and public relations. He can be found on Twitter @sreyes710.
