President Biden announced Friday that his administration is forgiving $5 billion in student debt for another 74,000 borrowers, marking the latest round of debt cancellation since the Supreme Court voided the president’s student loan forgiveness program.
Mr. Biden said that of the borrowers who can receive relief, nearly 44,000 are teachers, nurses, firefighters and others who are eligible for forgiveness after working 10 years of public service. Almost 30,000 of those who will have their debt wiped clean have been repaying their loans for at least 20 years, but did not get the relief they earned through income-based plans, the president said.
With the latest round of student loan forgiveness, more than 3.7 million Americans have had their debt erased under the Biden administration, Mr. Biden said.
3.4 million people total have had their debts forgiven (so far) out of a potential 45.3 million. That’s around 7.5% of all people who held student loans.
NOAA estimates that the oceans hold around 1.335 billion cubic kilometres of water, which is around 1.335 sextillion litres (1.335e18 litres) or 353 quintillion gallons (3.53e17 gallons). Estimates put annual human water usage at around 4 trillion m^2 per year (4 quadrillion litres or 1.057 quadrillion gallons).
If the student loans forgiven were merely ‘a drop in the ocean’, that ‘drop’ would contain 100 quintillion litres or 26.4 quintillion gallons. That ‘drop’ would weigh 100 quadrillion tonnes and would be twenty-five times the amount of water all human being use globally every year. Dumped over the contiguous United States, that would form a layer of water 12.5km (7.8miles) deep.
That’s a hell of a drop.
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This burn is so wet, I’m literally drowning just seeing it.