Biden administration forgives $39 billion in student debt for more than 800,000 borrowers
Biden administration forgives $39 billion in student debt for more than 800,000 borrowers
The Biden administration announced it would automatically cancel the education debt for 804,000 borrowers, for a total of $39 billion in relief.
This is… good actually?
Not sure why everyone is doomering or dumping in the comments. Obviously this could be better but why are people letting perfect be the enemy of good?
After the SCOTUS shut down his previous attempt, he had another one ready to go. He's doing what he can with what he has at his disposal to do something that progressives have been clamoring for.
If the court strikes this one down, they demonstrate yet again that they are corrupt and illegitimate, and make a more compelling case for expanding the court, and if Biden is smart, he'll just take the next contingency plan off the top of the stack and announce student loan forgiveness again. He can be seen directly fighting against a corrupt conservative institution that is ignoring long established norms, in favor of a demographic that is apathetic because they don't think anyone is fighting for them. If the court lets it stand, Biden gets an accomplishment to run on, and students get relief and a big ol' demonstration that yes, Democrats are actually interested in making their lives better after all.
And the best part is, his own party can't stand in his way. Manchin can't do shit. There's no bill to split into "the bill we pass" and "the bill we kill because it might help people."
Biden is working in direct unobstructed opposition to conservatives here. He's actually persevering instead of giving up forever at the first setback like we've come to expect from Democrats (see minimum wage and the public option). This should be encouraged. This is something the party can sell to its voters instead of just scolding them to take their ineffective medicine.
There are a lot of people who are invested in the collapse of the system for their, their benefactors, or their "teams" benefit.. Who actively want to poo poo and block anything, under the failure of an argument of "Well it doesnt solve EVERYTHING and isnt PERFECT, so theres no point in doing a stop gap solution!"
Because they'd rather no one get anything, than someone other than them get something
It's not enough, but it's at least something
It is great but as long as new debt will be immediately acrued by current students this is just a temporary fix. Or is there anything planned how to deal with that?
It’s a new payment plan, so applies to new student debt as well.
If I’m reading the StudentAid.gov correctly, the SAVE plan has the following:
- Increase in income exemption to 225% of poverty line (~$66k/yr for family of 4, ~$32k for single filer, no dependents)
- Undergraduate Loans now are 5% of AGI above exemption limit
- No interest accrued if you make your monthly payment
- After 10 yrs of payment, if principle loan was $12k or less, loan is forgiven. Payment period increases by 1 yr for every $1k over that amount (e.g. for $20k loan, forgiveness after 18 yrs)
This action makes a good headline for re-election purposes.
If you read the article, yes.
Debt forgiveness occurs after 10 years in an income-driven repayment plan (down from 20-25 years). Payments in these plans is now capped at 5% of discretionary income (down from 10%). Unspecified improvements to tracking progress towards loan forgiveness (historically this has been done by the company servicing the loan, and they are beyond awful at it, so this might just be not relying on them for this decision anymore).
If you guys would take the time to read the article you would see that this is not the same debt forgiveness plan as before. The plan cancels the debt remaining for students who have been making payments for 20 years. It's not a one time action but will be available to anyone in the future under the same circumstances.
Guess it's fuck me then. Biden not getting my vote fuck him. This probably get blocked too and he knows it. Cancel it all our fuck off.
The relief is a result of fixes to the student loan system’s income-driven repayment plans. Under those repayment plans, borrowers get any remaining debt cancelled by the government after they have made payments for 20 years or 25 years, depending on when they borrowed, and their loan and plan type.
Both parties are going to act like this is some giant thing...
But the people eligible are already in their 40s. If this was holding them back from buying a house, they'll have mortgage payments till their 70s.
Better than nothing, but a perfect example of "too little, too late".
The forgiveness applies to anyone who enrolls in the new plan, not just existing loans.
New plan is 10 yrs for <= $12k in loans, increasing a year for every $1k additional, so for example, someone who takes out $20k in loans can have the remainder forgiven after 18yrs of payments.
The 20/25 yrs was the old forgiveness plan with lower principal loan and income levels.
Additionally, if you're making your monthly payments, no interest accrued.
The "no interest accrued" bit is huge for the medical community. Newly graduated doctors with hundreds of thousands in loans were getting absolutely ruined by runaway interest while they were in residency on income driven repayment plans. Now, combine the SAVE plan with PSLF, and medical school is suddenly a lot more viable as an endeavor.
Didn't we just watch this episode? Let me guess, either Palpatine and/or the 'supreme court' is going to cancel this.
This is what happens when the writers go on strike...
setting fiscal policy is not the executive branch's responsibility.
that requires congressional action
So now the administration is tooting their own horn about… checks notes… helping a bit over 5% of the number of people they were supposed to help, which was already a controversial reduction from the number of people who should have been helped by this campaign promise being executed on?
Forgiving student debt for 804k people costs 39 billion? So on average they owed 45,5 million in student debts? Like... what? How?
39 billion / 804,000 = $48,507.46 on average.
How old and British are you?
It's never been clear to me why people who borrowed money should not have to pay it back.
People get tricked into loans they can't afford. "No, no, see, it's cool, once you graduate, you'll be rolling in it!" Queue 20 years of service industry jobs paying barely subsistance wages (happened to my wife).
Here's the experience with our kid, he graduated debt free 4 years ago.
When he was in high school, we got all these emails and memos about "FAFSA, FAFSA, FAFSA" and we went to the school and did all the seminars and all the forms and everything.
Kid got his first choice school - UC Davis - "Well, we've reviewed your FAFSA information, and counting tuition, scholarships, room and board, you need to take out parental plus loans of $56,000 a year for four years."
Yeah no.
Kid got into his second choice school, Lewis and Clark, we thought "Great! In state school! This should be better..."
"Well, we've reviewed your FAFSA information, and counting tuition, scholarships, room and board, you need to take out parental plus loans of $56,000 a year for four years."
🤔 That's the same oddly specific number the out of state school dropped... if we could afford that, he'd be going to UC Davis.
Want to guess what his 3rd choice school came back with (University of Oregon Honors College)?
"Well, we've reviewed your FAFSA information, and counting tuition, scholarships, room and board, you need to take out parental plus loans of $56,000 a year for four years."
So three schools, 1 out of state, 2 in state, all working from FAFSA all came back with the same oddly specific number. What are the chances of that? OTHER parents would have been sorely tempted to go "Well, I guess that's just what school costs..."
WE bailed on the FAFSA system, enrolled him as a normal student at the University of Oregon. Tuition was about $10,000 a year, he had a scholarship that paid $5,000 a year, I ran the other $5K through my Amazon card for points, paid his rent, and gave him a $300 credit limit card for food and expenses.
4 years later he graduated with a CS degree, no debt and went to work at Intel making 6 figures.