ICYMI — Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, once a finalist for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential ticket, is touting his influence in pushing Harris to embrace a key issue at the intersection of economic and higher education policy. —
Shapiro says he urged Harris to vow to get rid of rules that require a college credential for many jobs in the federal government, a point chronicled by POLITICO’s Holly Otterbein as part of a deep look into Shapiro’s home state campaign for the vice president. — Sure enough, Harris’
80-page economic plan commits to eliminating four-year degree requirements that are not needed for half a million federal jobs and challenges businesses to provide “clear pathways to jobs without imposing unnecessary degree requirements.” — During a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania’s blue-collar city of Wilkes-Barre
last month, Harris said she’d slash the requirements because “for far too long, our nation has encouraged only one path to success.” — During his gubernatorial bid, Shapiro promised to throw out college degree requirements for many state jobs, making it a key part of a closing TV ad
. “I can remember some conversations I had early on in the campaign,” he told Holly, “about how they felt disrespected by the Democratic Party that only talked about helping people earn a college degree.” — Those conversations led to Shapiro privately urging Harris to take up one of his policies aimed at Pennsylvania’s working-class voters. —
The bigger picture: White voters without a college degree, the core of former President Donald Trump’s base, make up a large portion of the electorate in the “Blue Wall” battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Some polls
suggest that Trump has slipped a bit with those voters. If that proves true — though many Democrats contend those surveys underestimate his actual support — it could give Harris the opening she needs to take the White House. — A Harris spokesperson declined to elaborate on the vice president’s conversations with Shapiro about tossing the credential regulations at the federal level.
WHAT ABOUT STUDENT DEBT? — While Harris focuses on policies targeting Americans without a college degree as she courts moderate voters, The Associated Press notes she’s avoided talking about student debt cancellation on the campaign trail. — Her aforementioned economic plan mentions student loans
only after a page of policies targeting workers without degrees. As for that Pennsylvania rally where she chided the country’s encouragement of “only one path to success? Student loans didn’t get discussed. — Of course, the administration is still pursuing a debt relief agenda. The Education Department on Friday formally announced proposed rules
that, if finalized, would authorize student loan forgiveness for about 8 million borrowers experiencing financial hardship. — That proposal could allow the department to waive up to the entire outstanding balance of a student loan if it determines something like unexpected medical bills, high child care costs, or devastating economic circumstances from the impacts of a natural disaster are likely to affect the borrower’s ability to make full repayment. —
Yet multiple Biden administration debt relief efforts have stalled in the face of conservative-led legal challenges. Just last week, during arguments over one of the lawsuits, three Republican-appointed judges in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals seemed dubious about some of the Education Department’s defenses of its popular SAVE loan repayment program. —
Such legal uncertainty has probably contributed to Harris’ de-emphasis of cancellation, Michelle Dimino, education program director at the centrist think tank Third Way, told the AP.
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