The Biden administration is canceling student loans for another 160,000 borrowers through a combination of existing programs.
The Education Department announced the latest round of cancellation on Wednesday, saying it will erase $7.7 billion in federal student loans. With the latest action, the administration said it has canceled $167 billion in student debt for nearly 5 million Americans through several programs.
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The latest relief will go to borrowers in three categories who hit certain milestones that make them eligible for cancellation. It will go to 54,000 borrowers who are enrolled in Biden’s new income-driven repayment plan, along with 39,000 enrolled in earlier income-driven plans, and about 67,000 who are eligible through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Education should be free. This is at least a better situation.
Without some sort of long term strategy, it may not be.
I’ve always said this would be good if also paired with some moves to improve things longer term, because random infusions of lots of free money without any checks on the university side has already worked to make the education more outrageously expensive. Continuing the strategy without any sort of price management will make things work.
Same could be said of healthcare, if as much money as they ask for is provided to the pharmas and hospitals, they will ask for more and more. Relief must be paired with some sort of plan to mitigate that.
You can treat symptoms and then address longer term problems when able. It’s not like it would be better for these people just to keep paying because the current divided Congress won’t address the core problem.
I hope so, but I’m pessimistic that even with full control that they have the political will to make reasonable reforms. Hoping I get to see what they do with full control for two years at least.
As long as you address the root problem in the window of time before things get worse from this cash infusion. And to be honest, I don’t have much confidence in that happening.
I don’t think the US university system is going to rework their fees because 160,000 people got public-service or low-income related forgiveness. It’s not even giving money directly to schools or financial institutions. The worst case is people who plan to either be poor or do public service may be less cost conscious when applying to schools, but the PSLF and income-based payment programs already existed and more importantly 18 year olds are just completely clueless about what taking out a $100,000 loan means. People fetishize economics like it’s a perfect mathematical system where every dollar spent will yield results in some other part of the system while just outright ignoring all the complete irrationality that exists in consumer decisions.
I think an individual jolt of this magnitude will not necessarily move the needle, but I’ve heard commentary about this just being a regular presidential thing to do going forward, which would be a pretty inadequate and unpredictable way (each time binging on happenstance of election, assuming that at least one of them even wants to do the “tradition”). Might be unfair for me to think overmuch on those suggestions, but they always stick in my head in these conversations. Still find it odd that the executive branch should be able to do this sort of thing unilaterally.
These were all either existing programs or a new program that forgives loans that already weren’t being repaid (via existing IBR rules). This is “unpredictable” only insofar as the previous president refused to let the programs work.
Still find it odd that the executive branch should be able to do this sort of thing unilaterally.
He isn’t. He does have that ability (because Congress specifically gave it to the Executive in the Higher Education Act), but these are existing programs directed by Congress. The new group is just Biden automatically enrolling people who qualify in the old program.
Worry about loan forgiveness to businesses and rich people rather than to poor people and public servants. There’s corn and fuel subsidies costing way more than this that have perverted the economy and actively destroy the environment. People get really worried about the economic effects of poor people getting stuff like that’s coming directly out of their wallet when there’s so much larger and more direct issues that just get assumed as normal.
This is “unpredictable” only insofar as the previous president refused to let the programs work.
The end result was a promised program that didn’t work as intended and was unreliable. The details are a little less important than the results. However, I’m actually referring broadly to some folks that I saw saying that it should be some sort of presidential ‘ritual’ of forgiving debt, rather than being confined to select programs.
Worry about loan forgiveness to businesses and rich people rather than to poor people and public servants.
Note that I’m less concerned about the loan forgiveness, but instead worry about the “blank check” effect and future affordability and whether or not a student gets stuck with debt assuming they will get forgiven and then get screwed because a future administration refrains from doing so or interferes with ‘forgiveness’. I’d rather circumstances result in no significant debt at all, that government’s willingness to contribute happens up front and universities are somewhat held accountable for their costs to keep that affordable. We can also worry about the crap done for businesses and rich people, but the current situation kind of sucks for planning if you are poor, having to go into massive debt hoping maybe you’ll get in on some forgiveness down the line.
But it is paired with other measures? The original full package would not charge interest for anyone making payments, for example.
I was thinking more on the university side, some sort of strings attached to have universities a bit more mindful on expense. Waving interest is again a good thing for the borrowers, but it’s still a relatively blank check for the universities.
This is why I am seriously considering studying overseas.
A few Australian universities attend college fairs in the USA, because even after you include the price of the flights, accommodation, and the uni itself, studying in Australia can still end up cheaper than the USA. Americans seem to love the idea of going to Australia, too.
State schools, community college. You bet. Although I’d like to see some amount of public service required during/after.
You wanna go to Harvard. Pay your way.
I think community service in lieu of debt payment is a phenomenal idea as long as its fairly generous in waiving debt such that part time community service should be able to waive medical school debt.
How about 10hrs of volunteer service per $10K debt/value.
Yes, it’s low. But, very doable and should be 100% fulfilled.
BoTh SiDeS!!1!
One small good deed doesn’t not redeem that little fucker from genocide support.
Which democrat or republican with significant support from the political parties would you recommend as a replacement?
I don’t know, it’s YOUR country, YOU figure it out!
Weird, this doesn’t sound like a thread you should be in then.
All major political parties and private organizations seem to be solidly on the side of supporting israel despite the atrocity. Only students and activitists outside the halls of power are very vocal about it. Normal people seem to think the gaza strip invasion is horrible but we have no more say on what the politicians and wealthy do than a foreigner does.
Since you’re a foreigner i’ll assume you are ignorant about this, but the US President effectively has no say on aid or penalties for foreign parties. Only the members of senate and congress can vote on bills funding the war effort… or removing said funding.
As if Trump didn’t support genocide. Netanyahu and Trump are both fascists.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905
https://www.vox.com/policy/24072983/biden-trump-palestinians-israel-gaza-policy-different
What would it cost him to cancel the genocide too, right?
As if he’s the president of Israel. Where have you people been while Yemen, Myanmar, Sudan, etc. all experience genocide?
Don’t forget about the Uyghurs who have been living in fear China will harvest their organs.
The shitty part - there is a lot of this happening and it’s quite exhausting. Like when does the fire-bombing start?
Did we supply those countries with weapons to commit genocide?
I personally think it’s stupid to not vote for Biden but your argument doesn’t really make sense.
Yes, the USA literally sent weapons to the Saudis to bomb Yemen,
Also if you don’t supply weapons to a country, they shouldn’t have sympathy??? You are the one who doesn’t make sense
No, but if the USA doesn’t supply weapons there’s nothing the citizens of the US can do about it. This is an issue they can actually affect by pressuring the US President.
Also, good point on Yemen. Hopefully this is helping people realize how many places around the world the US is causing pain and suffering for.
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He’s president of US and has circumvented Congress over 100 times to send 10s of billions worth of bombs to be dropped on Palestinian children’s heads.
We’re not asking that Biden rule over Israel, simply that he acknowledge the genocide and stop spending our taxpayer dollars to fund it. Why is this considered unreasonable?
Where exactly do you think the funding for Israel came from if not from Congress? And since you apparently haven’t been paying attention, Biden did stop the delivery of offensive weapons to Israel. In return, Republicans have been pushing a bill that will force delivery.
I swear you tankies are just as intellectually dishonest as the fascists.
Now explain the same administration moving forward other weapon sales even after the “delay of weapons”, stopping the UN from condemning or doing anything about Israel through vetoing resolutions against them, and him and his secretary of state (appointed by him) threatening the ICC, and the world, for wanting to arrest Netanyahu.
You’re right. That’s another reason not to support Butcher Biden:
In response to the recent escalation, the Biden administration apparently has doubled down on support to the coalition, announcing the sale of additional fighter aircraft to the UAE. Biden said the administration is considering redesignating the Houthis a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Biden had reversed this designation, imposed in the waning days of the Trump administration and opposed by humanitarian and human rights groups on the grounds that it threatens humanitarian aid on which millions of Yemenis rely to survive.
In addition to potentially violating U.S. law, continuing arms sales to the coalition puts the U.S. at risk of complicity in possible war crimes. The sales also fly in the face of justice and accountability for previous violations given the coalition’s dreadfully flawed investigations of its own strikes.
I honestly care about high income inequality and campaign finance reform. Can we talk about those instead of what you care about?
No, this is actually a really effective way of communicating with other people and convincing them what I have to say is worth listening to. This absolutely does not alienate people or make me come off as an insensitive bot that doesn’t know hot treat people like humans before I unload my personal interests on them
Free Palestine, btw! 🍉
I think we could benefit from some off-topic comment enforcement by the mods. Or just downvoting and not rising to the bait, but we all know that’s not going to happen. The Palestine conversation is completely unrelated to debt cancellation. The “both sides” is itself also just trolling for an off-topic fight.
⚠️ Warning Comment May Contain Satire ⚠️
Satire
How can you support Palestine while at the same time not making it your sole priority by doing nothing but being shitty online!?!
bahahahha
We made it in one reply. Perfect.
I man the comment they were replying to was obviously baiting for a fight.
Obviously.
A good decision from Biden.
This will no doubt be devastating news to the comments section on trucker Instagram
It seems like government investment in education is one of the best possible ways to allocate funds, even if not every person is directly impacted by being offered more schooing or degrees.
Think about it. More educated people around you is always better than fewer educated people.
One of the bonuses of living in the Boston area. Wicked smaht people around here.
Unfortunately our politicians view education as a zero sum game. Educated people generally have a left bias, which gives detractors incentive to cut funding and shoot down improvement initiatives.
I think it sounds better if this were just about how Biden’s plan is rolling out eligibility for 54,000 borrowers. Though it is a payment plan that results in forgiveness like the PSLF.
The thing about the PSLF is that it was supposed to erase debt for public service employees after 10 years of aervice and no missed payments. So when Bush signed it in 2007, people who came eligible for forgiveness under Trump starting in 2017 were denied over absolutely insane technicalities.
So he gets credit for those 67,000 and 39,000 borrowers only in that they were essentially denied forgiveness they already qualified for up until now. Honestly I think focusing on the new stuff and not a Bush era program hits better.
I can understand the perspective, but if the Trump administration deliberately interfered with the PSLF, then it’s a fair point in the obvious goal (to contrast his approach versus Trump’s). Of course, conveniently they waited for an election year, when they could have done this in 2021…
Problem then was covid: payments were paused so people who were 9 years and 10 months into paying under the program were left in an awkward limbo.
So now that covid emergency is “over” those kinds of cases are finally being reviewed over the period of time payments were paused.
My spouse had the clock on “10 years” reset because of a missed payment in 2015. Would have had them discharged in 2022, but now we are on track for 2025, unless the covid pause will delay how those 10 years are tracked to 2027 or later.
COVID non-payment periods counted towards the 10 years. Anyone who was 9 years and 10 months would become eligible at 10 years, even if they didn’t have to make the last two payments.
Great bandaid. Now stop all federal student loans otherwise this problem is just going to continue. The idea of the government cyclically giving out loans and then cancelling them is the stupidest shit I keep reading as a valid solution.
Baby grinder owner pauses the baby grinder machine for a few minutes
*round of applause*
Oh look, another “We’re not doing enough” doomsayer dismissing good news because no one else is allowed to celebrate positive things.
The baby grinding machine stopped for a minute and you’re NOT celebrating?!
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Great! How many borrowers are left now? Gotta be only a few
Only 160k? Damn, I hope for democracy’s sake he tries a little harder to win back the voters he lost over Gaza.
160,000 borrowers have earned $7.7 billion of loan forgiveness under a federal program put in place under the obama administration.
This headline is incredibly misleading. Biden had little to do with this.
You realize Obama hasn’t been president for over 7 years? Trump and Republicans weren’t going to do this.
Some of these debts are from PSLF program which is a Bush era program. Trump’s administration just denied or delayed qualified folks their forgiveness, and Biden is honoring mostly those who met the means testing like never missing a payment in 10 years.
Biden is not king. He leads the executive branch, executing programs authorized by Congress, but his administration has freedom in how he does so. A previous administration placed obstacles in the way, where this one is greasing the wheels.
means testing like never missing a payment in 10 years.
Means testing is restricting benefits to people who are provably “poor enough” to need the benefit, not requiring payments.
I was probably being a bit too cynical calling the payment requirements as a means test in such a literal sense.
7.7 billion divided by 160,000 is average ~480,000 of loan money per person. So they bailed out a large chunk of rich kids going to expensive private schools. Cool.
If they were interest free loans, yeah. Since they have interest those loans may amount to only $100,000 which is about what state schools cost at this point
Your math is wrong. $7,700,000,000 / 160,000 = $48,125
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I downvoted him because his math was wrong. It’s $48k.
Shit, I thought so too, then I did the math again, and got a the 480k answer. But I used 77 billion, because I am a dope.
Or could be med/law school loans
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Public med school median total cost is 268k while private is 363k
https://www.bankrate.com/loans/student-loans/medical-school-cost/
Anything else you’d like me to Google?
The average annual income for an individual in the United States is around $76,770 so why are Americans always acting like they’re done up so rough? Every American is making over 70k!
A V E R A G E takes a heck of a lot of poor folks to balance the billionaires.
Sad for those who worked hard and repaid their loans and now get to watch as everyone else gets theirs written off
Bad take. Just because one group of people had to go through some pain, doesn’t mean other groups should have to go through the same pain.
A long term strategy would still be better, but for now, this is a good move.
No pain - no gain.
I graduated 70k in debt. Paid it all off myself. I’m fine with this.
Next do mortgages
JOE BIDEN PLAYED a central role in the creation of the student debt crisis…
https://theintercept.com/2020/01/07/joe-biden-student-loans/
Edit, here is some more information if you would like to see more concrete examples:
https://bigthink.com/the-present/joe-biden-student-debt/
In 1978 he co-wrote a bill that introduced the first limit on how students could use bankruptcy law to reduce their debt burden.
In 1990 he helped author the Crime Control Act, which is famous for stepping up sentencing guidelines, included an entirely unrelated clause that further lengthened the time students had to wait before they could declare bankruptcy on their student loans.
In 1998 they introduced an “undue hardship” clause to federal student loan bankruptcy proceedings; making it even more difficult to declare bankruptcy on student debt.
To top all of this off, he supported adding the undue hardship clause to private student loans in 2005.
Imagine if someone took every mistake you ever made and magnified it as if you weren’t allowed to grow or change.
That’s you, that’s what you sound like
These are the things that he’s proud of. He’s not ashamed of these policies. Not one bit.
https://bigthink.com/the-present/joe-biden-student-debt/
In 1978 he co-wrote a bill that introduced the first limit on how students could use bankruptcy law to reduce their debt burden.
In 1990 he helped author the Crime Control Act, which is famous for stepping up sentencing guidelines, included an entirely unrelated clause that further lengthened the time students had to wait before they could declare bankruptcy on their student loans.
In 1998 they introduced an “undue hardship” clause to federal student loan bankruptcy proceedings; making it even more difficult to declare bankruptcy on student debt.
To top all of this off, he supported adding the undue hardship clause to private student loans in 2005.
1978 is reaching way back. Were you even alive then? Do you know what our society was like, what the options were? Have you changed at all over the last 46 years?
He didn’t vote on this, he co-wrote it. Wake up man…
In 1978 I stole a free battery from Radio Shack. Does that make me a lifelong thief?
He stole the battery in 1978, 1990, 1998 , 2005. If you can’t see the pattern, then I can’t help you.
You can’t say if he’s proud of it or not currently. All I know for sure is that actions speak louder than words and it’s the most action we’ve gotten a long time.
Is it the solution we need? No. However anytime he tries to do anything broader he’s blocked by Congress so I can’t hold too much at his feet.
Most people went to school before he was president
https://bigthink.com/the-present/joe-biden-student-debt/
In 1978 he co-wrote a bill that introduced the first limit on how students could use bankruptcy law to reduce their debt burden.
In 1990 he helped author the Crime Control Act, which is famous for stepping up sentencing guidelines, included an entirely unrelated clause that further lengthened the time students had to wait before they could declare bankruptcy on their student loans.
In 1998 they introduced an “undue hardship” clause to federal student loan bankruptcy proceedings; making it even more difficult to declare bankruptcy on student debt.
To top all of this off, he supported adding the undue hardship clause to private student loans in 2005.
Damn
Thank you for sharing all this.
While I’m under no illusions that Biden is my friend, in the current political climate, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s my friendliest enemy.
Can you shed any more light on that 1990 business?
While I have no familiarity with it, the circumstances suggest that it’s possible that the added clause was added as a bit of trade-off to other members of Congress to get the crime bill over the finish line. Not that that makes it any less bitter a pill for borrowers, but if that’s how it happened, that’s much less “Biden hates borrowers” and much more the political game in DC.
It’s not that Biden hates borrowers or students. The problem is, that even way back then, he owed too much favours, so he drafted legislation that “the big guys” (his quote) wanted.
Results from Cca 1990 being easier to criminalize young people, and young people with records could not wipe debt/much harder to do. (if I understood it correctly).
And now, he’s changed his stance in response to a changing society and pressure from voters.
Isn’t that a good thing? Don’t we want politicians who are demonstrably responsive to voters?
He hasn’t changed his stance, hes doing the bare minimum to garner positive headlines in an election year.
He needs to actually change stances if he wants to prevent another Trump presidency.
Biden has been working to cancel or eliminate student debt for pretty much the whole of his term.
What, exactly, more do you want from him? A heartfelt apology for having a different opinion 20 years ago?
Some self-reflection and an apology would be a nice bonus, sure.
He was the lead senator that passed legislation so that student loans could no longer be discharged in bankruptcy, after all.
But what I really want is determined efforts to eliminate student debt, not half-assed efforts to get positive headlines.
So no specifics? Remember, the president didn’t make laws…
What would you have him do that he hasn’t already done?
