The Secretary on education

THE TWO YEARS THAT MIGUEL Cardona has been in the nation's top education job haven't exactly been serene: In June, the Supreme Court rejected President Joe Biden's student-loan-forgiveness plan and, in another ruling, essentially overturned affirmative action.

- OLIVIA B. WAXMAN

The nation is in the midst of both a teacher shortage and a wave of book-banning attempts. At the same time, students are still working to recover from pandemic-era learning loss.

The Secretary of Education covered all that, plus ChatGPT, in a July conversation with TIME.

When the student-loan-payment pause ends this fall, what do you say to borrowers who won't be able to make ends meet? We announced the best income-driven repayment program in our country's history, which will change the experience for so many borrowers. It cut in half the college payments that are due to undergraduate students. We're also going to fight really hard to continue with debt relief. The Supreme Court got the decision wrong.

With the Supreme Court effectively overturning affirmative action, what practices could build more diverse student bodies at the nation's top colleges and universities? That's another example where the Supreme Court took us backwards a really, really wrong decision. It ignores the fact that in this country, as much as we're fighting for an equitable system, it's still not there we could be talking about health care access, higher-education access, K-12, education outcomes. Black and brown students, particularly, have to work twice as hard to get to that starting block.