The Biden administration is moving ahead with a new path to student loan cancellation for Americans who face steep medical bills, child care costs and other types of financial hardship that prevent them from repaying their loans.

Announced Friday, the proposed rule is President Joe Biden’s third attempt at student loan cancellation as he faces repeated legal challenges from Republican states. His first plan was rejected by the Supreme Court last year, and his second plan has been temporarily halted by a federal judge in Missouri.

The new rule would have to clear a number of hurdles before it becomes official, and it’s unclear if it could be realized before Biden leaves office in three months. Like Biden’s other loan forgiveness proposals, it could face court challenges from conservatives who say it’s unconstitutional and unfair.

If finalized, the new rule would allow the Education Department to proactively cancel loans for borrowers if the agency determines they have an 80% chance of being in default on their loans within two years. Others could apply for a review to determine if they meet the criteria for cancellation.

  • Flying Squid
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    5327 days ago

    In before “he’s only doing it because of the election” as if that somehow makes it a bad thing.

    • @BenReilly97
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      3127 days ago

      And as if he hasn’t been doing this throughout his entire term as president.

      • @bamfic
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        127 days ago

        Or as if they all don’t, and that’s not how the whole system is designed to run

    • @ChilledPeppers
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      827 days ago

      Im not even american, but the FTC and Joe seem a lot cooler these past few months

      • Flying Squid
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        327 days ago

        I couldn’t care less if people do the right thing for the wrong reason and I have never understood why anyone does.

    • @InverseParallax
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      27 days ago

      I’m gonna be honest, I’m not trying to be a dick, I supported him doing it all along, especially in the past.

      But this close to an election sounds a bit like when Trump sent out stimulus checks and blocked them till they let him sign his name, and claimed all the money came from his pocket.

      Giving money before an election should be banned by both sides, if this passed earlier I’d be all in favor, but next republican president is going to give $2000 rebates on all gun and lifted f-150 with covered bed purchases, and knowing Trump he’ll give more if they pose for videos with said gun and truck outside minority polling stations.

      This is the problem with trash like Trump, it’s a race to the bottom and we all lose.

      • @[email protected]
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        27 days ago

        So the sitting president shouldn’t be allowed to keep doing things they have been doing for years, just because it’s close to an election and someone unrelated might do something else after getting elected?

        That’s stupid. Sorry but it is. It’s the same logic that prevented Obama from seating Supreme Court justices. And look how that turned out.

        If this was the first ever time it was tried, maybe, but even then, we’d never have anything nice in that case. And we’d never get anything done from August to January in election years, which would also be intensely stupid.

        We need to take what we can get, not be all weird about when it happens.

        • @InverseParallax
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          127 days ago

          So the sitting president shouldn’t be allowed to keep doing things they have been doing for years, just because it’s close to an election and someone unrelated might do something else after getting elected?

          And then Trump will pass out crazy rebates on redneck shit himself, or pass tax hikes on everyone he doesn’t think will vote for him (he hit me with SALT pretty bad, all blue states were hit).

          • @[email protected]
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            27 days ago

            He’s going to do that anyway, whether it’s allowed or not. His plan is to break the country by any means necessary. What actual difference does it make to trumps plans if Biden keeps doing his job until he’s not in that job anymore?

            The answer is none whatever.

            • @InverseParallax
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              -127 days ago

              So we should all sink to the level of trump then…

      • Flying Squid
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        27 days ago

        As I already said to someone else, I could not care less if people do the right thing for the wrong reason.

        People are hurting. This will help some of them. Complaining that people who need help are getting helped for the wrong reason is silly.

        If I’m starving to death, I don’t care if you gave me a sandwich because you wanted to help me or you gave me a sandwich because you thought it was disgusting and wanted me to suffer by giving me a disgusting sandwich because either way, I won’t be dying.

        • @InverseParallax
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          127 days ago

          Yeah, that’s not my problem.

          My problem is it’s an escalation of giving away money just before an election for votes, and that’s not anything we want to escalate.

          I am 100% in favor of giving money for student loan forgiveness, the interest was huge, and it’s not purgable by bankruptcy, it needs to be forgiven.

          But I’m terrified of the timing, personally we need an expectation that legislation will stop roughly 90 days before an election so you don’t have dangerous things like giving money for votes, or passing laws to ban voting by key demographics.

          This is bad no matter who does it, let’s try to have a 90 day window before elections, let’s even do what other countries do, have a 2 week cool down period before voting where ads and other spending are stopped.

          • Flying Squid
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            27 days ago

            Okay, exactly how many days before an election should a president be prevented from doing anything that might help people?

            Because spending never stops. You’re talking about an election spending cool down period. This is not election spending.

            • @InverseParallax
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              127 days ago

              As I said, 60-90.

              Otherwise I start passing a law to give $1000 to everyone, and time it so it passes just after the election, and if I lose then nobody gets anything.

              This is like Reagan telling Iran to hold the hostages till after the election, and Nixon and Vietnam.

              Nobody is really trying to do meaningful legislation before the election anyway, they’re focusing on campaigning, so it doesn’t matter much that way either.

      • @Snapz
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        227 days ago

        You’re argument has no basis, his administration has been trying to get this done through a broken Congress and Supreme Court for a long time now. It’s not “this close to a election”. And fuck off with the, “and believe me I ain’t no trump fan either” qualifier shit - bad points are bad points, period. You don’t get headed on an average of your horseshit opening statement and try to land on something rational as a giveaway.

        Rethink your approach or sit down.

  • @bazus1
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    4527 days ago

    I benefited from a federal loan cancellation due to hardship this past March. 35k in Staffords - poof. It was amazing.

    • Flying Squid
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      1827 days ago

      How dare you benefit from it when other people aren’t! You’re required to suffer because other people didn’t get theirs. And if they did get theirs, you’re required to suffer anyway because you weren’t good enough.

      I think that’s how it’s supposed to work anyway.

    • Tiefling IRL
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      1627 days ago

      I’ll have you know I toughened up, pulled myself up by the bootstraps, and paid off a $25k loan over the span of eight or so years

      …and I’m still glad people are getting loan forgiveness because I don’t want other people to have to go through the BS I did. Congrats!

    • eluminx
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      627 days ago

      That’s awesome! my wife didn’t qualify unfortunately (lucky it’s not a big amount of money) but I’m glad there are people who do and they are getting what they deserve. This should help so many out there that are in a tough position. This is what tax money should be used for, along with infrastructure, medieval bills, education, and any other thing that benefits us as a whole.

      • @PrincessTardigrade
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        227 days ago

        Oof, our tax money is definitely funding a lot of medieval bills :(

    • @doingthestuff
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      127 days ago

      I’m curious, what was your degree? Have you found work in your field at all?

      • @bazus1
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        127 days ago

        Graduated >10 years ago with an engineering degree, and worked in an industry that was nailed really hard by Covid. The career was… pretty close to my field, but accepted many different engineering degrees.

  • @SupraMario
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    4127 days ago

    He needs to go further and stop the loans all together and force these mega schools to go free if they’re state run colleges. It’s bullshit that these schools are fed federal/state money and then continue to paywall education for everyone.

    • @Fredselfish
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      027 days ago

      I’m financial hardship is he going forgive my loans?

    • @[email protected]
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      -1027 days ago

      Another thing they need to do is be ban public schools from accepting any international students until all qualified American citizen applicants have been accepted. We pay taxes for these schools, we should be the ones using them first.

      • OBJECTION!
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        27 days ago

        That’s a completely ridiculous stance. Most international students are part of exchange programs meaning that for everyone attending one of our schools, one of our students gets to study abroad in a school from their country. These exchange programs allow people to be exposed to new ideas and perspectives and promote cross-cultural understanding, both by our country’s students experiencing other cultures and from foreign students sharing their perspectives and experiences with people at home. Isolating ourselves like that would reduce the spread of knowledge and ideas, for literally no reason.

      • @SupraMario
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        927 days ago

        Yea…no. that’s some isolationist crazy shit.

      • @LifeInMultipleChoice
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        27 days ago

        Exchange programs better schools, which is why we have them. Also research between schools and countries are highly beneficial which I would argue is the most important part of higher education. If you want to send all American students to trade schools they wishto go to and qualify for, I’m on board with that. The value of Universities is being diminished and viewed as grade school by to much of the population.

      • @TenderfootGungi
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        327 days ago

        They love international students because they pay the full price. The cost for American students is partially payed with tax money.

      • @PriorityMotif
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        27 days ago

        Yeah, I live near UIUC, they have a recruitment office in China. They love those students because they pay much higher tuition. Meanwhile local kids could only dream of going there. It’s all rich kids from Chicagoland. The tuition there is crazy, something like $30k/year. I see rich kids driving around campus in lambos.

        Not including other fees and expenses

  • @xenoclast
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    1327 days ago

    Can’t wait for it to be blocked by Republicans so they can say he didn’t do anything.

    Or take credit for any potential benefits by claiming it was their idea and they did all the work.

    • @rottingleaf
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      -127 days ago

      Well, would he try if he knew they’d not block it? Politics, sire.

  • @[email protected]
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    -6327 days ago

    At first it was going to be to forgive all student debt for everyone making under $80k, then it was $20k, then they knocked it down to $10k but only for left-handed, red-headed, teacher-nurses. Get it through your thick heads; the Demo-rats don’t give a fuck about you any more than Republi-tards. If they gave away free education, their military recruitment (which mostly benefits from taking advantage of desperate poor people) would suffer even more, and it’s already at an all-time low. And that’s setting aside that colleges now are just huge moneymaking Ponzi-scheme, hedge-fund sports franchises that do education as a side-hustle.

    • Flying Squid
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      3727 days ago

      I didn’t realize that the Supreme Court had a “Demo-rat” majority.

    • @[email protected]
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      27 days ago

      Oh wow… Just an awful attempt at disinformation.

      General incoherence aside… I guess the Supreme Court doesn’t exist, and Biden shut down his own loan forgiveness program?

      I mean really… Do better.

    • Tiefling IRL
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      27 days ago

      Answer me this, why do you think they haven’t been able to succeed in their first few attempts?

    • @Snapz
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      827 days ago

      Kiddos, realize that this is the thing working from all angles to influence your thoughts right now.

      The same energy/funding behind this real/fake person, who is just obviously so ignorant that it hurts to read here, is also currently posting in all of your feeds elsewhere. They are posting in those feeds in much more subtle ways, and often, all to make you doubt objective truth.

      They are posting the lead comment, and two comrades are then posting replies below the original misinformation to say, “I agree” and/or “I didn’t know this, but I asked a friend and they said it was actually true, weird!” All things to, again, influence you to doubt the things you can see as true with your own eyes/reason.

      This dark energy/funding is likely in some of your favorite YouTubers/twitch streamers you watch, definitely all throughout Reddit, it’s in your IG/FB/TikTok feeds, it’s in the news your parents watch and the editorials in your newspapers. It’s in the supreme court deciding your future if you’re in the US. It’s insidious. One of the best skills you can hone right now is the ability to feel it quickly and the empathy to warn others about it in a way that they can hear your warning.

      • Tiefling IRL
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        627 days ago

        Don’t forget botnets to artificially make it seem like an opinion is more popular than it is by mass-liking it

        • @[email protected]
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          -17 days ago

          Where’s my bots go? Did they gain shit-lib sentience an decide to downvote me? You silly little bundle of twigs.