DoD Industry Advisor · dodindustryadvisor.com · April 16, 2026

Policy & Constitutional Order

I spend a lot of ink on the current administration. There’s a simple reason for that: Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House. When you run all three branches, you get all the scrutiny. That’s not bias — that’s math. When the Democrats inevitably win something back, and they will, I’ll have plenty to say about them too.

EDITORIAL EVIDENCEThe author’s research assistant demonstrates the appropriate emotional response to discovering your student loan forgiveness plan just got struck down by the Supreme Court —again.Note: the sweater was a gift. The legal analysis in this article cost considerably more.© MDK Photography

But some of my right-leaning friends aren’t convinced. “You only go after Trump,” they say. “You’ve gone soft. What’s next, a Che Guevara t-shirt?”

Fine. You want me to go after the left? Let’s go after the left.

Let’s talk about how the Biden administration tried to unilaterally cancel $430 billion in student debt through executive action, got slapped down by the Supreme Court, and then tried it again — which takes a special kind of audacity usually reserved for people who double down on 16 at the blackjack table. Let’s talk about how the Democratic approach to the student debt crisis was to bypass Congress entirely, pretend a post-9/11 emergency statute gave the president the power to rewrite the federal budget, and then act outraged when the courts said no.

And while we’re at it, let’s talk about the bigger picture: executive overreach isn’t a disease unique to one party. It’s a bipartisan pandemic, and the only vaccine is the Constitution — which, unfortunately, both sides treat like the terms and conditions on a software update. Agree and skip.

The Biden Student Loan Saga: A Constitutional Crash Course

Let’s start with the facts, because facts don’t care about your voter registration.

In August 2022, the Biden administration announced a plan to cancel up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt per borrower (up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients), invoking the HEROES Act of 2003 — a law passed after 9/11 to help military members, not to erase $430 billion in debt for 43 million Americans.

Congress designed student loan discharge for “a few particular exigent circumstances.” The Secretary of Education can’t “convert that approach into its opposite.”

— Chief Justice John Roberts, Biden v. Nebraska (2023)

On June 30, 2023, the Supreme Court said no. In Biden v. Nebraska, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a 6-3 majority, held that the power to “waive or modify” loan terms doesn’t mean you get to create an entirely new forgiveness program affecting nearly a quarter of all American adults. The Court invoked the major questions doctrine — the principle that when an agency claims authority to make decisions of vast economic and political significance, it needs clear authorization from Congress, not a creative reading of a 20-year-old emergency statute.

Did the Biden administration accept the ruling and move on? Of course not.

They launched the SAVE Plan — a new repayment scheme that, through a series of generous calculations, would have effectively forgiven loans for millions of borrowers at a projected cost of $342 billion over ten years. Seven state attorneys general sued. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals struck it down. By February 2025, the SAVE Plan was legally dead.

Final tally: The Biden administration claims to have canceled approximately $183.6 billion in student debt for over 5 million borrowers through various executive actions. The Eighth Circuit’s broader ruling has called into question the legality of the vast majority of that forgiveness.

The Bipartisan Hall of Constitutional Shame

Before my liberal readers start celebrating that I’m only here to roast Biden — don’t get comfortable. The point isn’t that Democrats are worse than Republicans on executive overreach. The point is that everyone does it. Every president, eventually, picks up the executive order pen and starts writing checks the Constitution can’t cash.

Here’s the historical record. No spin. No favoritism. Just presidents from both parties getting told by the courts to sit down:

President Party Year What They Tried / What the Courts Said

Harry TrumanDEM1952Tried to seize America’s steel mills during the Korean War. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer: “The President’s power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker.”

Franklin RooseveltDEM1935Had five executive orders struck down in a single year. Tried to pack the Court. The Court called his bluff. (Yes, the chickens in Schechter Poultry were literally on trial.)

Abraham LincolnREP1861Suspended habeas corpus without Congressional authorization. Chief Justice Taney ruled only Congress had that power. Lincoln ignored the ruling.

Bill ClintonDEM1995Banned federal contracts with companies that hired permanent strike replacements. A federal appeals court ruled it conflicted with the NLRA and struck it down.

Barack ObamaDEM2014NLRB v. Noel Canning — all nine justices agreed he exceeded constitutional authority on recess appointments. All nine. His immigration executive action was also blocked.

Donald TrumpREP2017–presentTravel ban stayed within days. Sanctuary city order struck down. In his second term, the birthright citizenship executive order was called “blatantly unconstitutional” by a Reagan-appointed judge. The Ninth Circuit agreed.

Every president, regardless of party, eventually decides that Article II of the Constitution is more of a suggestion than a rule. And every time, the courts — eventually — say otherwise.

So when I write about the current administration’s executive orders getting blocked by courts, I’m not being partisan. I’m doing what I’d do — and what I just did — for any administration that tries to govern by decree. Biden’s student loan gambit was unconstitutional overreach. Full stop. And the next time a Democratic president tries something similar, I’ll be right here saying it again.

The system works. Slowly, expensively, and only when someone with standing bothers to sue. But it works.

How We Got Here: A Brief History of Making Student Debt Inescapable

Now let’s talk about why student debt is the only financial obligation in America that’s harder to escape than a gym membership at a place that doesn’t answer the phone.

  • Before 1976Student loans were fully dischargeable in bankruptcy, like credit card debt, medical bills, or your cousin’s ill-advised boat loan. The actual abuse rate? Less than 1% of all federally insured student loans were discharged in bankruptcy. Congress changed the law over one percent.
  • 1976 — Education AmendmentsCongress imposed a five-year waiting period before student loans could be discharged in bankruptcy. The stated reason was to prevent abuse. The actual abuse they were preventing? Statistically negligible.
  • 1978 — Bankruptcy Reform ActThe restriction was moved into the Bankruptcy Code itself, giving it more legal permanence.
  • 1984 — Bankruptcy Amendments ActThe rules expanded to cover private loans from nonprofit institutions. The walls were closing in.
  • 1990 — Crime Control ActThe waiting period was extended to seven years. Because apparently, Congress decided student debtors needed to serve a longer sentence than most car thieves.
  • 1998 — Higher Education AmendmentsCongress eliminated the waiting period entirely. Now the only way to discharge student loans in bankruptcy was to prove “undue hardship” under the Brunner test — a three-part legal standard so difficult to meet that it essentially requires you to demonstrate you’ll be destitute for the rest of your natural life.
  • 2005 — Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection ActThe final nail. Congress extended the bankruptcy discharge prohibition to private student loans too. Now it didn’t matter if your lender was the federal government or Sallie Mae’s venture capital arm — your student debt followed you to the grave.

Let me say that again: you can declare bankruptcy on a million-dollar mansion, a fleet of sports cars, and a failed restaurant — but not on the education that was supposed to help you afford those things.

Both parties voted for these restrictions. Both parties took campaign contributions from the financial industry while doing it. Bipartisanship at its finest.

The $1.84 Trillion Question Nobody Wants to Answer

$1.84T

Total student loan debt (Q4 2025)

42.8M

American borrowers

$39,633

Average federal loan balance per borrower

$681.5B

Debt held by 35–49 age group

That’s 42.8 million borrowers. It’s the second-largest category of consumer debt in America, behind only mortgages. The 35-to-49 age group carries the largest share — $681.5 billion — which means the people who were supposed to be in their peak earning and home-buying years are instead still paying for a degree they earned when flip phones were cutting-edge.

Meanwhile, college tuition has increased 1,200% since 1980, while general inflation rose only 236%. Tuition has outpaced inflation by roughly five to one. In the 1980s alone, tuition at public four-year colleges rose an average of 9.7% per year.

Would college be cheaper if lenders knew borrowers could walk away?

Think about it. Right now, the student loan market operates with a guarantee that no other lending market enjoys. The borrower literally cannot escape the debt. Not through bankruptcy. Not through financial ruin. The only exits are full repayment, qualifying for a narrow forgiveness program, or death.

  • What does a lender do when they know the borrower can never default? They lend freely.
  • What does a university do when it knows the money will always flow? **It raises prices.**It builds climbing walls. It hires a Vice Provost for Synergistic Learning Outcomes. It charges $85,000 a year and calls it an “investment in your future.”
  • If student loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy — like literally every other form of consumer debt —lenders would have to assess risk. They’d look at whether that $200,000 art history degree from a private school with a 40% graduation rate was actually a sound investment.
  • Universities would have to compete on value, not just prestige and amenities, because the money wouldn’t be guaranteed.

The market would do what markets do: impose discipline through risk.

Would some students get less funding? Yes. Would some universities have to cut costs? Absolutely. Would we stop pretending that every 18-year-old needs a four-year degree to have a meaningful career? One can hope.

The German Model: What Happens When You Don’t Funnel Everyone Into College

Speaking of alternatives, let’s talk about Germany, where they solved this problem decades ago by doing something radical: not pretending every teenager needs to go to college.

Germany’s dual education system (Berufsschule) works like this: after completing lower-secondary education around ninth or tenth grade, roughly half of all graduating high school seniors enter apprenticeship programs instead of pursuing university degrees. They spend three to four days a week learning a trade at a company and one to two days in vocational school.

51%

of Germany’s workforce trained through vocational education

400K

German companies offering apprenticeship positions

€0

Tuition cost for apprentices (+ modest monthly salary)

€15,300

Avg. company investment per trainee per year

Two-thirds of those companies offer full employment contracts upon completion. Germany’s youth unemployment rate consistently runs well below the European average.

Compare that to America, where we tell every kid they need a bachelor’s degree, load them up with $30,000 to $200,000 in non-dischargeable debt, and then act surprised when they can’t afford a house at 35.

Important caveat: Research shows that vocationally-trained workers can face tougher labor markets as they age. The employment advantage that German vocational graduates enjoy over their university-educated peers tends to reverse around age 50, as the nature of work evolves and narrow skills become outdated. Any American adaptation would need to account for lifelong learning and skill refreshment — something Germany itself is still figuring out.

The German model isn’t a plug-and-play solution for the U.S. It’s embedded in Germany’s specific legal, cultural, and industrial framework. American employers aren’t structured the same way. Our unions look different. Our cultural worship of the four-year degree runs deep. But the principle is worth stealing: not everyone needs college, trade skills are valuable, and the path to a middle-class life shouldn’t require mortgaging your twenties and thirties.

So What’s the Actual Answer?

If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably noticed I haven’t proposed a silver bullet. That’s because there isn’t one, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either running for office or selling a course on TikTok.

But here’s what I know:

Principle 01

The Constitution matters — for both sides. When Biden tried to forgive student loans through executive action, the courts stopped him. When Trump tried to redefine birthright citizenship by executive order, the courts stopped him too. That’s not the system failing. That’s the system working. If you cheer when the courts block the other guy’s executive orders but cry foul when they block yours, you don’t love the Constitution — you love power.

Principle 02

Making student debt inescapable was a bipartisan mistake. Congress stripped bankruptcy protections from student loans over a period of 30 years, with votes from both parties. This removed the market discipline that keeps every other lending sector honest. Universities had no reason to control costs when the money was guaranteed. The result is $1.84 trillion in debt and a generation of Americans who can’t build wealth.

Principle 03

College isn’t the only path, and we need to stop pretending it is. Germany funnels half its students into paid apprenticeships that lead directly to skilled careers. America funnels nearly everyone toward a four-year degree and then wonders why we have a shortage of electricians, welders, and plumbers who charge $150 an hour because — supply and demand, people.

Principle 04

Executive orders aren’t legislation. They never were. They’re not supposed to be. A president who governs by executive order — any president, any party — is doing an end-run around the legislative process. Sometimes that’s expedient. It’s never durable. And it’s often unconstitutional.

The student debt crisis won’t be solved by executive fiat from the left or dismissive bootstrapping from the right. It’ll be solved when Congress does its job: restoring bankruptcy protections, incentivizing alternatives to the four-year-degree pipeline, and forcing universities to have skin in the game when their graduates can’t repay their loans.

Congress doing its job. Now that’s the most radical proposal in this entire article.

The author writes about whoever is in charge, which right now means Republicans get most of the ink. This week, the left gets a turn. Nobody is safe. His student loans are paid off, but his sympathy for those still carrying the weight is not.

Sources

About the Author

Mike Komorous

Mike Komorous is the founder of DoD Industry Advisor, a defense technology and government contracting advisory focused on helping companies navigate the federal market. A combat-rated Air Force officer, Mike served as a nuclear missile operator, C-17 pilot, and MQ-1 Predator pilot before managing rated personnel across the Air National Guard.

His policy career spans legislative affairs, defense acquisitions, and geopolitical strategy at OSD Policy. Today he builds AI systems and advises defense-tech companies on strategy, business development, and contracting.

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