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.
…
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.
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?!
Awesome, so everyone who couldn’t afford to go to college now has to pay for the people who went to college making more money than the person paying off their debt. Yeah, that seems legit.
Did you hear how much was spent on the Iraq war? Maybe the 2008 debt crises? Maybe the PPP loan forgiveness? Surely you’ve heard of one that dwarfed those in comparison. Obvious troll is obvious
It’s a 1 day old account with this as its only comment.
Obviously
So, what’s your point? Yeah, I just joined Lemmy, why is that such a big deal?
Yeah, so what that there’s been more money spent on other things. That has nothing to do with this. Why does that make it okay to take money from people who couldn’t afford to go to college and give it to people that went to college that have a higher income than the person they took it from?
You’re right , Its almost as if college should be free, along with healthcare and many others. Perhaps the rich should pay for it similar to other first world countries.
I don’t see why colleges aren’t forced to lower their tuition costs. They already get billions in taxpayer money every year. Imo, to take even more taxpayer money to pay off student loans is just theft.
Literally this person’s only post.
Screams bot dunnit?
No bot here, I just joined lemmy
A bit
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
Or could be med/law school loans
What med school costs 150-250k per year…?
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 is 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.
You got down voted because of the unnecessary shiftiness, but you did bring up what seems like a good point. $7.7b seems like WAY too high a number for 160k loads, since that would equal $481k per person on average.
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.
He must go.
How dare a president improve people’s lives!
Don’t worry, he will right after he beats Trump’s obese ass in the next election and completes a second term <3
I sincerely wish I shared your optimism.
All it takes is for Americans to get off their asses and vote.
That’s literally it. If everyone voted, Trump would lose badly.
It doesn’t matter how loud they are, Trump’s supporters are a minority at less than 40% of the population.
Everyone else does not support him or his agenda.
I dunno about FartsWithAnAccent, but I’m getting so fed up and depressed by the current system I’m looking back around to hope. Not expecting, but hoping. Crazed optimism could be next for me.
A good decision from Biden.
BoTh SiDeS!!1!
What would it cost him to cancel the genocide too, right?
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
As if he’s the president of Israel. Where have you people been while Yemen, Myanmar, Sudan, etc. all experience genocide?
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
We made it in one reply. Perfect.
I man the comment they were replying to was obviously baiting for a fight.
Obviously.
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
This will no doubt be devastating news to the comments section on trucker Instagram
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.
The problem with this debt forgiveness by a thousand cuts is spending hours researching it then finding out you arbitrarily don’t qualify because some highly technical reason.
This technocrated BS isn’t helping any but the lucky few that end up qualifying.
The problem with this debt forgiveness by a thousand cuts is spending hours researching it then finding out you arbitrarily don’t qualify because some highly technical reason.
Are you saying because this doesn’t help everybody then it shouldn’t be allowed to help anybody?
Are you defending a politician’s fix to a broken system with dozens of highly specific and hard to understand reforms?
If Biden had the choice between one broad fix that was easily communicated vs dozens of micro reforms; I’d prefer the broad reform even if I didn’t personally qualify. Democrats are our only hope and if they stop tripping over their own feet it will be better for everyone.
Are you defending a politician’s fix to a broken system with dozens of highly specific and hard to understand reforms?
Are you not informed about the political realities and the limits of power of the Executive branch?
If Biden had the choice between one broad fix that was easily communicated vs dozens of micro reforms; I’d prefer the broad reform even if I didn’t personally qualify.
I think we all would, and Biden tried the big broad fix. The Supreme Court shot it down in June of last year:
Supreme Court strikes down Biden student-loan forgiveness program
“By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its authority last year when it announced that it would cancel up to $400 billion in student loans. The Biden administration had said that as many as 43 million Americans would have benefitted from the loan forgiveness program; almost half of those borrowers would have had all of their student loans forgiven.”
So instead of doing nothing, Biden is working within the limits of the power he does have to provide student loan forgiveness. Yes its patchwork, yes we’d like a broader application of student loan forgiveness. He tried. Its not in his power.
The president is the most powerful person in this country. He is explicitly empowered by Congress to forgive student debt. The only actor here that is limited in power is our SCOTUS who constantly over step their bounds, make up judicial theory out of whole cloth, or ignore their own rules.
How come I never hear the experts say they are limited power in these executive vs judicial debates?
The president is the most powerful person in this country.
The office is, yes. It still doesn’t mean he’s an all powerful king. We have power divided into 3rds to provide checks and balances. The Executive is only 1/3rd.
He is explicitly empowered by Congress to forgive student debt.
I’d like a citation on that claim.
The only actor here that is limited in power is our SCOTUS who constantly over step their bounds,
Then why are you complaining that Biden isn’t doing enough?
Funny you bring up a king. Biden is empowered by congress to forgive debt, people broadly support student debt relief. How is forgiving debt acting like a king in this circumstance?
I think you are confusing the actions of the unelected SCOTUS who routinely takes actions against the will of the people. If Biden wants to stop unilateral actions, he literally needs to fight against this far right SCOTUS.
Why are you arguing about student debt relief if you don’t know the law that empowers POTUS? It’s cited by Biden himself, but you can google yourself, you might learn something.
Biden is empowered by congress to forgive debt
I asked for a citation on this. Show me where you’re seeing that please.
It’s cited by Biden himself, but you can google yourself, you might learn something.
You make the claim, you’ve got to back it up.
I think you are confusing the actions of the unelected SCOTUS who routinely takes actions against the will of the people.
I’m not a fan of the current make up of the SCOTUS, but its never been their job to represent the “will of the people”. Their job is to interpret laws written by the Legislative Branch and signed into by the Executive.
I don’t think you have a good grasp of the basics of our system of government.
If Biden wants to stop unilateral actions, he literally needs to fight against this far right SCOTUS.
If you’re looking for insurrectionists, you’ll find them on the Conservative side.
He is explicitly empowered by Congress to forgive student debt.
I’d like a citation on that claim.
That part is correct, but the Supreme Court will probably make up some fake “major questions” to deny it.
https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Ltr to Warren re admin debt cancellation.pdf
Amongst the general powers conferred by Congress to the Secretary in the HEA is the power to “enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.” 20 U.S.C. § 1082(a)(6)
I hate that logic so much, it’s taking over this whole platform
So just stop paying 🤷 I have over 80k and I haven’t paid anything in over a decade. I just don’t care. They can cancel it, or not, makes no difference to me, I’ll never pay anything.
They’ll take your social security money
More than that, they’ll garnish your wages eventually. It happened to me once when I was barely getting by. I had to go to court and show my finances on public record and be humiliated to get them to back off.
I live and work outside the US, they can’t touch my wages
So your advice is: 1) don’t pay it and 2) work and live in a different country. Super reasonable! /s
No, I’m not giving advice to do anything. The op was frustrated they would not get their loans forgiven, so suggested the possibility of not paying. It’s an option. No payment as a form of protest. And I definitely did not tell anyone to live in a different country… Learn how to read
Work and live in another country is actually pretty darn good advice if you can get out of this shit hole.
Yep, they took mine even when they weren’t supposed to anymore for at least two months after I got them dismissed for TPD. When I tried to get back the overpayment they literally told me they can do anything they want and I would never get my money back. They were right. At least they never got the 27k back that was cancelled. Eat shit Nelnet.
What social security money? I’ve pretty much never worked in the US, never paid in. I’ve lived outside the US for 16 years now.
Do you think that might possibly have something to do with it?
You should probably not take financial advice from this person.
problem is he was blocked from doing broad based so he is squeezing things through as he can.
Do you want debt reform or not?
Congress empowered the president to forgive debt. The courts ignored standing rules to even take that case and SCOTUS has no power to overrule both congress and the president.
President’s have ignored SCOTUS before but Biden doesn’t even have to do that. He can forgive debt like he’s doing now but do it broadly and instantaneously.
If SCOTUS later rules against that broad forgiveness, there’s nothing administratively they can do. No politician D or R would reinstate $.5 trillion in voter debt just to appease the unelected SCOTUS. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle.
you realize what your saying is a longer form of what I was right? because your initial question makes it sound like I was saying he should not be doing what I pointed out rather than me pointing out he is doing what he can.
If you believe forgiving the debt 100k students here and there is reform, then we are in disagreement.
I think over 100 million student debt holders will need some type of debt forgiveness to actually reform things. That why I push for broad forgiveness.
And yes Biden can! It’s his administration and admins forgive debt all the time. We are so many liberals in this thread defending SCOTUS?
he can’t because he tried and got it blocked so he is working at it as he can based on the ruling. When a ruling like this is made you have to dissect it and see what you can work around that is specified in the ruling. that is what he is doing.
What are you saying? Biden himself says the ruling is wrong and will do any means possible to forgive student debt. He’s doing that on a minor scale, he can by his own account, do it at a larger scale.
you make no sense. just because he thinks a ruling is wrong does not mean he does not need to abide by it and he is using any means possible within the law and certainly he meant legally. We know the man that well enough.
This technocrated BS isn’t helping any but the lucky few that end up qualifying. It helped me via the TEPSLF and we got a much more reasonable monthly payment rate for my spouse’s loans. Biden and the members of Congress who moved the TEPSLF program through the legislation is awesome and we should be forgiving these loans en banc so we free up generations of fellow citizens to actually live and grow.
I mean, I truly am happy for you and your spouse…really, I am, as someone coming up on 40 and still with five figures of student debt.
That said, you really only responded to the quoted portion by saying in so many words that you’re “the lucky few that ended up qualifying”.
Which, again, is great!
Only 160k? Damn, I hope for democracy’s sake he tries a little harder to win back the voters he lost over Gaza.
Great! How many borrowers are left now? Gotta be only a few
Next do mortgages
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 always better than fewer educated people.
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.
One of the bonuses of living in the Boston area. Wicked smaht people around here.
JOE BIDEN PLAYED a central role in the creation of the student debt crisis… https://theintercept.com/2020/01/07/joe-biden-student-loans/
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.
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?
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).
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.
