In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Biden Administration’s effort to forgive student loans, it is worth revisiting one of our objections to the attempt by the White House to unilaterally address the issue.

We still believe the proposal would have been too costly, and we still believe it failed to address the steep climb of tuition at many colleges and universities of which student loan debt is merely a symptom.

But the objection that requires revisiting now is perhaps the most central — the deficiency that contributed to both of the other underlying problems with the measure more than any other factor.

The White House pursued the measure by executive action — an approach that freezes out the deliberation of the legislature and the diverse experiences and perceptions of lawmakers.

U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Howard, offered more nuanced, targeted legislation to extend student debt relief to men and women in agricultural and agriculture-related fields. As we editorialized then, the “bipartisan bill provides student debt relief to a critical sector of our workforce, at a fraction of the cost of the Biden Administration’s attempt to sidestep Congress on the issue, and through the appropriate process subject to transparent debate and compromise.”

An op-ed column in this past weekend’s Sun-Gazette by another lawmaker, Republican Sen. Ryan Aument, who represents part of Lancaster County in Harrisburg, reiterates this point.

“There is a reasonable middle ground,” he wrote. “We shouldn’t just push personal accountability aside — these borrowers took out the loans and it is their responsibility to pay them back. But when millions of Americans ARE responsibly repaying their debt with no hope of getting their balance down to zero, it’s clear that our system is not working.”

Aument is right. And, again, a balanced, more fair approach to this contentious issue can be found — through the transparent debate and compromise of the legislative process.