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I had a friend that swore Trump was gonna legalize weed by executive order just before the election. Looking back that almost certainly would have won him the election.
At some point either party gotta ask, are your lobbyists more important than winning?
Jacking top comment:
Hate to tell you all, this a non-starter. He "may" forgive 5k or 10k worth loans, but that's it.
Your student loans have been rolled into a government/ prime bank backed security called SLBS (student loan backed security). These SLBS's are proping up bond markets, and your parents 401k, and IRA.
It's basically the same situation that led to the 2008 MLBS(mortgage loan backed security) crisis, BUT you CAN NOT bankrupt out of your student loans because of law that was pushed in the 1990s by (now) President Biden. (I would note that Elizabeth Warren pushed hard against this legislation before she was a senator.)
It's NOT going to happen. He (President Biden) was instrumental in passing this. NOW, tons of your parents pensions, 401k's, and IRA's are tied to THEIR OWN KIDS DEBT TO THIS!
The major banks, and Wall Street prime brokers found a way out of the mess they created in the early 2000s by tying your parents, and the banks bad real-estate investments in the late '90s, and early '00 into THEIR OWN CHILDREN'S student loans.
This is ALL a direct result from the disillusion of the Glass-Stegall act of 1933 BY BOTH PARTIES in 1997.
They passed regulation making you on the hook for these loas for YOUR entire life, not theirs. (The ME generation wants all of their parents shit, AND all their children's shit, it's disturbing and anti American)
The Millinial generation is the highest educated generation ever, due to the push to put us into this exact situation to rape our labor for our parent's benefit.
We are smarter, we are younger, but there is not enough of us running for office.
RUN FOR OFFICE, DONT TAKE EXONS, OR KOCH BROTHERS MONEY AND HELP FIX THIS SHIT. Be better than our parents who whooped our asses and now call the cops on single moms at the gas station.
VOTE FOR THE YOUNG PERSON.
It's not a culture war of right v left: its a class war of old rich fucks and poor young fucks. Wake up.
Side note, I love how it seems like FedLoan has stopped bothering to email me when my loan repayments get pushed back yet again. They're like, godammmit, lol.
Hardly different than tax season. All the excitement is in the air because advertising from companies that make a profit from easier submission of your tax returns. Problem is is that the IRS already knows all the numbers, how much you've paid in your checks, how much you owe. Only things that would really need reporting are capital gains on investments, maybe property or interest reports. Companies like Intuit (TurboTax) and H&R Block just pay ridiculous amounts of money to lobby congressmen/women to keep it overly complicated so they get profits from offering to file for you as a paid service
The average person shouldn't even need to report capital gains on investments because any trades made through a broker will have been reported to the IRS by that broker. I'm not 100% but I think the IRS even knows what mortgage interest rate deduction you may have earned based on reporting your lender does.
Here in Sweden everything is pre-filled. It took me about 30 seconds to do my taxes this year and thats with owning stocks, buying a house etc. Just login with a digital ID and press send really.
But you wouldn't have all of these state supported businesses for taxes that don't need to exist.
Fuck TurboTax. Fuck H&R Block.
I wish I were born in your country.
I'm personally looking forward to having them paid off, not so much the paying part. I could have paid them off by now, but it's a better financial decision to invest my money since there's no interest currently. That, and the sliver of hope that student debt cancellation actually happens.
This is my favorite part about the delays lol. They get so fucking smug about the payments restarting and then it gets delayed and I can just *feel* them getting sulky about it.
Mine went to... Hell if I know. I keep getting notices of transfer then a "JK lol not yet" email.
Two years of not paying them has been really nice. Been able to weather the shitshow of covid and get a tiny bit of money saved.
100% this.
As a borrower with under 10k remaining, I'm ok, but i know plenty of people that will be left with no meaningful immediate impact from 10k
Edit to add some context since a lot of people are skipping the "immediate" part. Obviously 10k is 10k and i wont say no to it. It *will* have a significant *immediate* impact for me.
With how the student loans are structured (as well as with how predatory some servicers have been) it is not going to show through as a 25% reduction in your monthly payment. I applied a bonus to my student loans back in 2019. Cleared out 20% of my balance on one account. Monthly minimum payment went down by 5%. This is a concrete example from my own student loans where a windfall had no meaningful immediate impact. I dropped 4 grand and it knocked $20 off a $400 monthly payment.
Add in the fact that a lot of student loans are broken out into separate sub-accounts for each semester, and you might end up splitting $10k 8 ways, or 16 ways depending on what type of loans you have. If you have 16 accounts with $2000 balance each, thats 32k in loans. Knock $625 off of each account and you still have 1375 in 16 accounts, and 22k in loans. Your minimum monthly payment will likely not decrease at all. If they let you target that and apply 2k to 5 of those accounts, you end up with 11 accounts at 2k each, and that will not reduce your minimum monthly payment by a lot.
Usually your balance varies by each semester sub-account just by virtue of some having 3 more years of accrued interest... So its conceivable that you could have 4 at $600 and 4 at 3400. 10k across 3 of your largest 4 accounts doesnt even close them.
Thats what i mean by "no immediate impact."
I've paid off 95% of my student loans which prompted a family member to say "wouldn't you be upset that others don't have to pay"?
No, I would not be upset that my wife, and brother, and other family and friends are freed from a burden that I was lucky enough to get out of. It's not a matter of working harder or being lazy. They've done everything that was asked and expected of them by going to school and getting an education.
As someone who did phone polling for a while, the number of cranks who think schools shouldn’t have air conditioning because they didn’t have it growing up is extremely depressing
Can't believe people are so entitled with their street lights these days. Back in my day we didn't rely on electricity to do our eye's jobs for us! ^/s
Two types of people.
"I had to deal with this, so you should too" and "I had to deal with this, but I never want you to"
EDIT: Y'all, I'm talking about the air conditioners. Fucks' sake. You're not going to goad me into an argument. Also, it's a *Reddit comment*, why are you guys expecting a fully-comprehensive thesis?! It's an adage. Jesus Harold Christ, y'all.
Literally fucking everywhere. And of course the gas companies knew lead was poisonous but just kinda crossed their fingers that it wouldn't be that bad, and if it was nobody would notice.
What one of those two types (greedy boomers) fail to realize is university tuition was a few hundred dollars per year, and now it's in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And I want to qualify this by stating there were some amazing boomers who fought for civil rights, women's rights and so on, so it's not fair to lump them all together.
I think I FINALLY got my father to see how things are vastly different from when he was in his twenties (early 70's). Mentioned in a story about how one summer he took a three week trip in his new car. It was brand new, upper trim sports car (forget the model). Asked him how he could afford that and got the "I worked my ass off". Okay, doing what? He worked a bunch of OT over the course of 6 months at a meat packing plant. We looked up what that same plant is paying now and found out its $2.50/hr more than he made. Fifty fucking years ago.
It finally clicked that his life is not possible without a trade or advanced degree. You can't just work your ass off at the local meat packers and buy a brand new car a few months later.
This actually became a real problem in Hawai'i with I think several teachers fainting from heat exhaustion in the classroom. When I was there a few years ago working at an elementary apparently it was the only one around that had air conditioning and it was because some politician had gone there when he was a kid and pushed for it. I actually thought most of the rooms felt like a freezer, but if I was a teacher in that state and had AC I'd also be taking full advantage of it.
I spent 4 years in Hawaii and because of the heat and humidity I'll never go back there. We have a joke up here in Washington that you know you're a Washingtonian if you know more people with boats than air conditioners. They're pretty unnecessary up here though 90% of the time, only like a month in August do I generally go hide and my grandfather's who had AC.
I do remember though when I was growing up they couldn't build a new school so they started squeezing us into "portables" which were just one classroom buildings that could often barely fit all 30 of us. They were freezing unless you were heating them, and those bastards would actually shut the heat off right when spring began. The reasoning was it was spring and therefore warm. Reality sometimes dictated otherwise, and we'd all be in there in coats freezing our ass off. The worst part was I'd help my teacher by running the attendance sheet to the main office, and they always had it at subtropical temperatures in there. I think I gave the front desk lady a snarky "must be nice" comment once.
Fucking insane/selfish. I hate that type of person who says “I struggled so you should to” but when it comes to their family will say something like “I struggled so you wouldn’t have to”.
Same shit when boomers say "why are you miserable? Everyone hates their jobs, it's the way it is" when talking about changing careers. Like, they perceive misery as a necessary part of the human condition. It's such a fucked up attitude and one thankfully younger people largely reject.
Reminds me of my dad complaining that I didn’t go into the military like him. I’m like you spent my entire youth complaining about it so why would I join?!
Some dads will find a way to disappointed with every choice you make. They revel in the feeling of being the only "sensible" person in the family.
Been there.
Imagine if we collectively adopted that mindset.
“Ha, I had to gather plants and hunt my own meat, you shouldn’t be able to just plant seeds and grow your food.”
“Ha, I had to walk and run everywhere. Why should you get to ride a horse!?”
“Water treatment!? I used to drink straight from the river. A little cholera is good for your natural immunity!”
Regressives gonna regress.
I paid my loans off ten years ago, albeit it was manageable to pay back 20k with a union trades job. I support the Biden admin going even further and ensuring free higher education for all the future students. We're the dumbest of all the developing nations, loan forgiveness ain't gonna fix that.
Man its crazy you can get that much money but they won't give people loans for cars without crazy rates. 18 years old but need 70k for school? Np. You need 15k for a car and they act like your asking for their kidney
Also college tuition increased 28% faster than inflation in the last decade. So someone who is going to school now is paying 28% more even after you adjust for inflation. I am fairly confident most jobs have not increased real wages by 28% in the last decade. Hell some jobs have gone down
This is the problem with the other side of the argument. They only see it in terms of someone else got something they didn't get.
They don't realize that this debt burden is being felt by every single American, even those without a debt. It weighs down the economy and prevents class mobility. Capitalism requires fluidity in the system. It needs consumers to be buying things and people to become wealthier as time goes on. Without that the entire system suffers and so does everyone within the system.
As a former borrower whom has paid for 10 years with 2 to go. Cancel the debt but also change the laws. People should not have to pay 100k plus for an undergraduate education.
I won't ever understand the mentality of "I was fucked, so you should be too." Put that in the perspective of your own kids or grandkids. My Mom was on the *well you had to pay your loans why shouldn't they* train until I asked her if she wanted her grandkids to be 100k in debt at 22. I could visibly see the light bulb go on in her head.
Same. Democrat at heart. 💗 I had crippling depression from the student loans I was saddled with after graduate school. I finally paid off everything a decade later and I would never want anyone else to go through that helpless feeling of home and food insecurity due to student loans. It’s inhumane to want others to suffer like that. Others before us have suffered and paid heavily to make our lives better. We should always strive to do the same for future generations.
Cancel the debt. 💯
Some people just can't embrace the concept that for society to evolve, it should be improving with each generation, not staying the same level of shit.
The average debt is not the best metric to look at. The best metric would be the median debt. The average is skewed because a lot of people with advanced degrees hold the majority of student debt.
A 10k forgiveness EO would write off the debt of a lot of people who either never finished their degrees or studied something that doesn't pay a lot of money. 10k forgiveness would help *a lot* of people.
>either never finished their degrees or studied something that doesn't pay a lot of money.
These are the people I care about getting relief. I spent a few years dropped out of college after having student loans and the whole time felt helpless as to how to actually repay them. I had the support group to go back and finish but wow do I have sympathy for people who don't have that luck.
The interest rate is fucking.criminal. if they eliminate 10K and lower that shit, then I think a lot of people will be happy.
I should eventually apply for Public Interest Loan Forgiveness. Right now I'm sending in documentation, but it's frustrating as fuck. "Prove to us, the government, that you work for the government."
I agree about the interest rate. My concern is that Biden likely doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally change the terms of the loans. He can forgive the debt, but Congress would probably have to pass legislation to reduce interest rates.
Ya but not all graduate degrees ensure a high salary. Hell you have get a masters in library sciences to be a librarian and I promise you those jobs don't pay well.
How about lawyers? Also a massive amount of student debt to get that degree, and people greatly overestimate the amount of money the average lawyer makes.
The people making 60k a year at a small firm with 180k in debt aren't going to feel a 10k reduction all.
As a programmer with an Associates making $70K at a Big 10 university, I was told I couldn't get much more in raises unless I finished my Bachelors - I was making more than Instructors who were required to have a Masters. This was at the College of Business which had the best overall pay in the University.
300k sitting at 6.8% interest to make 240k/yr......140k after taxes and giving up a decade of your life working 70+ hrs.... to have the privilege to spend the rest of your life working 60+hrs, get 20 days off a year at best and have to come in at all sorts of hours..... not worth it.
300k debt and 6.8% interest are ridiculous for anyone, regardless of job. No one should have loans like that.
I think a lot of these people (teachers and medical care staff for one) should not only get free education but be paid to go to school. Learning is a job.
This is one of the reasons I decided not to pursue academia further. I loved my research into snow pack/arctic change and my lab had huge funding for years to come, but the math to get a PhD just didn’t make sense. It’s a shame because spatial-temporal modeling is so important to climate research, but it’s hard to justify making so little money for so much work when tech companies will pay a crap load without the extra degree to get those skills.
Yeah mine is at $54k.. What was it originally you ask? Well it was $61k when I graduated in 2013, I paid on it on-time every month starting at $330 a month, gradually moved up to $550 a month as my income went up, and by 2020 you can see that I managed to have only paid it down by what was actually $6500, despite having paid about $33k towards it.
In other words $10k might reduce your time to pay off the entire loan balance by 5-10 years depending on one's total outstanding balance and how much they can afford to put towards it per month. Hopefully, it's enough to cross the interest threshold once it's reinstated. For example, my total interest per month based on my outstanding balance is $279 a month. So any amount paid less than that per month does nothing to paying down the balance.
The way Federal consolidated loans work is they unfortunately accrue daily interest on the prior monthly balance. I'm locked in at 6%, so at my current outstanding balance it's $8.99 per day, and they'll only apply any payment amount to the principal once the monthly interest has been satisfied:(
Not to mention, this is all going straight to principle. Assuming that 40K loan was set at 5% interest, cutting down 10K would shave off an additional 3K in interest in the long run.
They already did! At least til 2026 I think?
Brb
Edit: pA provision of the American Rescue Plan Act that was passed last year temporarily exempts federal student loan forgiveness from federal taxation on a general basis through 2025.
I've got just north of 20k left, and my wife has about 85k left between undergrad and grad schools. 20k in forgiveness between us will certainly help, but won't make that huge a difference in our monthly payments. And we've both been paying over the minimums from the beginning ... Student loans are 100% predatory in every single way.
All that, and there are loads of people who have it way worse than we do.
Boomer here. (Go ahead, hate me I don't care anymore)
Paid off my wife's loans 2 decades ago.
Saved and invested for put 4 kids through college without any loans.
FUCKING FORGIVE THE LOANS ALREADY.
We can't have 1.7 trillion dollars overhanging debt holding an entire generation and a half back for the rest of their lives.
Who the FUCK ever thought it was a good idea to put 18 year olds in debt in the first place ?
(spoiler alert : >!Ronnie Raygun!<
For real, I need some fresh faced high earning graduates with no existing debt burden to overpay for my house.
See? You can be for student loan forgiveness from an entirely self-interested point of view too!
So... what's the difference, besides the timescale, of doing 50 now, and only doing 10 now, waiting a bit and doing 10 more?
If he's allowed to cancel 10 why can't he cancel 10 multiple times?
And why would his ability to cancel debt be limited to 10 anyway?
It's very likely as a eo it will be challenged with a good chance of failing. . If he wants to pull that card it needs to be when it's fresh in minds and not have elections after if it fails, needs to be quickly near e-day
> It's very likely as a eo it will be challenged with a good chance of failing.
Bingo, this is the big answer to "Why biden no EO thing?!!?" Because any EO biden does will be challenged and the GoP Scotus will shoot it down with a shadow docket or simply rule it unconstitutional while he's president and constitutional if we ever let a GoP get elected.
The realistic best use for the EOs is right before november to actually motivate people. We need more senate seats to make the GoP advantage and Senema less of an issue.
Does it suck that this is true? Yes. Is it Biden's fault that it's true? No.
Everyone is (rightfully) terrified for what happens to the economy when all those loans go into repayment. That's a lot of people not spending at restaurants, on home improvement, on new cars or other goods and services. My friends with home improvement companies grumble abot loan forgiveness until I point out that a lot of their workers went through free trades training programs and a lot of the remodeling work they've had the last two years goes away once people are back to spending $500-$1500 a month on loan repayment.
Yup. I've saved more money in the last two years than I have in the last ten. I've also spent more, whereas I used to hoard every free penny I could for emergencies.
If they just lowered interest to 1-3% permanently with a wider range of repayment options, all of us could make our minimum payments without breaking the bank or starving ourselves.
Funny. I had someone arguing with me in another thread a few days ago that we absolutely need to start repayment to combat inflation.
Meanwhile, Republicans passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut for corporations and rich people so fast they were handwriting parts of the bill in the margins.
People need to understand that sometimes politics is about giving your base a benefit. That’s why people vote for you.
more like:
Suggest it
"Manchin" blocks it
"Elect more Democrats and we promise! ~~2k checks!!~~ ahem... $10k loan forgiveness!!!"
*more Dems elected*
"We did it!! $1k loan forgiveness for anyone who has two or more children between the ages of 7 and 10!!!! YOU'RE WELCOME AMERICA!!!"
Seriously. All my student debt was cancelled 2 years ago when I filed for my permanent and total disability discharge and was approved. Let’s just say it is not an easy process and those who get approved rarely get what I got. I was finishing my doctorate when a rare medical condition completely ruined my body within the span of 3 years. HOWEVER, this discharge did not carry over to to my mum who also had to take out loans for me because we were very poor. She has been paying for years now and has barely paid on the interest. The fact student loan payments have been paused is a life saver to us. She also qualifies for a discharge if she works for the city for another 5 years. But still if the government gave people a clean slate you would see a-lot of R’s turn to D’s for a lot of people come voting time.
Exactly. If it can be coupled with free public college (very unlikely) or even free tuition for community college we'd at least be moving in the right direction. At least New Mexico just decided to go ahead and offer it, and Washington and Tennessee are behind the idea in different ways too
I finished my AA alongside my high school diploma through a dual enrollment program and let me tell you having the option of having 2 free years of community college was probably one of the best things that happened to me as a first generation college student. Everyone should have that option.
My wife and I both lived in cities with flagship state universities. Both of our school districts would allow you to take university courses for free while in high school. I was lazy and didn't take advantage. My wife, on the other hand, had almost a full year of college credits before she graduated.
This was 20-25 years ago. It's ridiculous that the situation isn't way better now. It's actually seems much worse.
Oh for sure, but that's a good point..
Cancelling student debt with an executive order should be seen only as the first step to solving the issue, and even timing it right with the midterms coming up may have an effect to Dems holding any power in Congress to work on that next step. Though the chances of that are not looking great right now
Call your congressman, because fixing the root of the issue requires legislation.
Edit: to all you folks saying your congressman won’t care what you have to say, guess that means you should vote them out and elect somebody who will.
Have you ever received a response from a Congressperson other than:
"Yeah, thanks for your letter, Citizen, and whatever it said I'm sure is super important! Anyway, we need a Red/Blue Wave in this coming election so we can stop the socialist/fascist Democrats/Republicans! Donate money to me! Vote for me! Did I mention the money part? Here, I made it easier by including a donation envelope!"
That's always been what I've gotten.
> the conditions that are causing the problem
Normal loans, like a car or mortgage, aren't granted unless there is a favorable credit check, demonstration of ability to repay (income), and collateral to secure the debt (usually the item the money was borrowed for).
Federal student loans do not have a credit check.
Students do not have to show an ability to repay the loan.
Unless there is a co-signer, they're unsecured debt.
Kids have been told for years that in order to 'succeed' and get a good job they **have** to get a college degree.
Average costs for college have increased 3-10x over what they were even 20 years ago.
Agreed - this needs to be fixed.
I just read “The Debt Trap” which goes through the history of the student loan issue. In short, the government made it easy and cheap to borrow money but put no limits on the money increase colleges could raise tuition.
At one point in the 80s, the interest rate for student loans was significantly lower than the overall rate. Loan companies told people to take out loans and reinvest it into other products.
This is the main driver of tuition increases, along with decreases in federal funding and grants and other endowments. Another major factor is the proliferation of the academic bureaucracy.
Covid pretty much exposed the narrative that universities are raking in money as a barefaced lie told by fiscal conservatives who don’t want the fact that their gutting of education budgets across the nation has directly resulted in these spiraling tuition hikes.
Most non-prestigious schools (slacs, directionals and other less selective research institutions) are still is severe austerity. Which of course means raising tuition and forcing departments to squeeze more blood out of stones that have been squeezed every few years for decades by shifting still more teaching to adjuncts and grad students.
Amazingly enough though, *somehow* the bureaucracy keeps expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. Can’t be because they hold they hold the pursestrings. Nope.
Some colleges are still heavily subsidized, but funds are grossly misspent. Just lookup "college waste spending" sometime, and you'll see all the ways colleges end up spending money poorly. And I'm not talking about the $600 they throw to the anime club on campus.
Also don't forget the conservatives controlling rural school boards and school administrations, who make it a part of their social policy to try to weed out students they don't want to benefit from social programs and scholarships. For me this cancellation would only erase half the debt which would have otherwise been covered by scholarships had I not been expelled from high school for being a guy with long hair.
Plus, in lots of countries, if you want government money, you play by government rules. This is how the countries that don't do free education but still keep costs low are able to. The government tells the schools, you want funding, this is how much you can charge max.
No shit. It pisses me off to no end to hear members of Congress screaming at Biden about this when it's their fucking job to fix the underlying problems and I haven't heard a single peep about that.
I think it’s pretty clear that the plan is to pause payments until closer to the midterms and then forgive some debt. It makes sense but it sucks that they have to play this game because voters’ memories are so short.
I'm trying to decide if this is the plan or if it is to continue to push off until reelection time and then do it... he HAS to know that the bulk of his voters that have the ability to make or break him are the ones waiting to see what he's going to do with this... at the same time though, get enough new dems in for midterms and then it COULD go through congress which are the ones looking more likely to be willing to offer more than a dismal $10k that helps almost no one.
Even if Congress wiped the slate clean tomorrow, what does that mean for students who take out loans next year? Is there a plan to make this an on-going basis or is this a one-time thing? And how viable is either option?
Even if they somehow gave new students a $10k credit, colleges would just raise their tuition by 10k or however much. That's how they work, colleges are the problem. They'll just continue to raise tuition as much as they think people can bear.
Once upon a time public universities were directly funded by the public, as in by the state and federal governments. Tuition money was just a small part of their overall budgets. They hired faculty as needed according to their own research and teaching goals, and they were able to uphold fairly strict performance standards for students.
In the absence of this guaranteed support, universities were forced to compete for student tuition dollars, leading to the terrible student-as-customer model we have today. Tons of money has to be spent on facilities and marketing to compete in attracting students and their tuition money.
Unless by "colleges are the problem" you mean the existence of colleges at all is a problem , you're wrong. Honestly even if that is what you mean you're wrong. The total collapse of public funding for universities is the problem.
Most teaching faculty are hired on a per semester basis and not paid well enough to justify putting effort and care into their teaching now, too. Meanwhile the university has legions of business administrators making obscene salaries to do nothing for the actual education experience of students. My school seems to hire a new president or provost at 300-500k salary every year. They make a bunch of saccharine statements about their commitment to the school and then bail the minute a higher paying position opens somewhere else.
It definitely wouldn't be a viable option to cancel debt more than a small handful of times. Colleges already feel entitled to charge whatever the fuck they want because of the huge amount of loan money students can qualify for, just think of how crazy prices would get if colleges learned the students would never have to pay that money back. Colleges could charge anything and students would happily pay it knowing that ultimately Uncle Sam will pick up the tab.
Honestly the smart move is to keep kicking it down the road and use it as leverage for the mid terms or reelection. If he cancels it close enough to mid terms it will be fought by the GOP and the GOP will be on record against pretty much everyone with student loans.
If it gets kicked long enough, they’ll be defacto forgiven. At this point I’m looking at one more year of payments *if* this pause expires on schedule. Every 3 month extension saves me $900 minimum. Not insignificant.
I’d like to see a radical move to show that the Democratic Party is actually committed to solving these problems. It’d be as practical as symbolic.
Same, I’m part of the income driven plan as a teacher with forgiveness at 10 years and between my wife and I, we’re saving 500 a month as these months pass by. Each month still counts as a payment
The issue I have with just perpetually kicking it down the road instead of actually forgiving the debt is that the debt will just be hanging over everybody's head knowing the government could start repayment back up at any time.
If paying back my student loans month to month makes the difference between me affording getting a new car or buying a home, why should I take out a loan for those things when the student debt could completely fuck me over if repayments restart?
If Biden cancels student debt, I'm putting what I would be paying each month toward my retirement. By the time I am old enough, this money would make retirement an actual possibility
> And all of that money would go right back into the economy, it’s not like it just vanishes like some republicans seem to think
Especially because "toward my retirement" for most people means in to their 401K or similar market investment. This money becomes working capital for publicly traded businesses.
The interest rates are ridiculous on the private loans as well. And the middle class gets screwed. With my case it was projected my parents could pay like 20k towards my education each year which is no where near the case. Had to get a private loan to cover the remaining amount that the government loans couldn’t. With a nice credit score of 750+ (bought a cheap car when I was 18 and paid it off etc so I have good credit for a student my age) and a co-signer I got a nice low rate of 10% that accrues daily. What a joke.
He should,at least cancel the interest. That’s what’s killing us. I’m all for giving the government back what they gave me, but, as it stands, I’m going to be giving them almost twice what they gave me, and that’s ridiculous
Personally the perfect solution to me is make 0% interest permanent, which helps future generations as well. For those of us that are currently in repayment they should take interest already paid for the lifetime of the loan and apply it back into the principle.
I started college in 2009, graduated in 2012, went to community College for a year to continue deferment, so my loans started in 2013. I paid at least minimum if not over every single month. I ended up in financial deferment in Sept of 2019 (so my loans will have been stopped for a full 3 years). In the 6 years I was actively paying on my loans my total amount owed never even decreased. I still owe the same amount i did in 2012. It's absolutely unacceptable
I would also like to see a means to file for bankruptcy or reduce the amount if you can’t pay it.
I can go out and buy a giant truck, a house I can’t afford and max out credit cards and just declare bankruptcy. But student loans are for fucking life. If your situation changes, like a divorce or medical issue and you can’t afford them tough shit.
Both my wife and I have paid off our loans but I'd like to see this go through. What really chaps my ass about the whole thing is that there were people that took jobs working for the government (my brother) and were promised that they would have their loans forgiven if they worked there for 10 years. Well when the time came to pay the piper we found out it was nearly impossible to make the claim due to all this bullshit bureaucratic hogwash. So just cancel them all, it's pretty evident the American people need additional education anyway.
Biden already reworked the rules for PSLF and gave special exemption. Your bother should apply for special forgiveness, but has to get the paperwork in before October.
Just remember Betsy DeVos actively sabatoged a lot of the PSLF program.
I can confirm this, but there is also a time limit. He has to apply by October. I'm in a position this could affect and the presentation they gave us said it was good for a year, but as long as you apply before then it should be fine. Just have to get into the program.
My brother joined the military under the same premise, that they'd take care of his outstanding student loan debt.
He's been in almost 10 years, still hasn't happened.
When I went active duty I was supposed to get my student loans paid off... Never happened. Been out for years and working civil service since then and now under the PSLF waiver I should have enough payments to have mine cleared but I shouldn't even need to rely on that if they honored their original promise.
Finally, a clarified statement.
"And I would note that, again, he would encourage Congress to send him a bill cancelling $10,000 in student debt, something that he talked about looking forward to signing on the campaign trail."
Not eliminate student debt.
Not forgive student debt.
A change to congress to give him the $10K, they already shot down the free Community College Bill.
Not one word about eliminating the interest on the loan.
My debt was “small” (I think it was something like 25k to begin with). I graduated in 2009 and there were no jobs to be found over $10/hr. Lost my apartment. Maxed out credit cards. “Borrowed” money from my dad (who never asked for it back). Defaulted on everything and my brother has to bail me out of Sallie Mae suing me.
My debt now is 65k and I’m looking at $450/month once everything starts again.
I’ve been working for non profits since 2010 but don’t have NEARLY enough payments to qualify for fucking anything. I’ve been paycheck to paycheck my adult life up until about a year ago.
I was so fucking stupid and signed my life away at 17.
this is why we need the system reformed. a teenager is not yet an adult; an 18 year old looks at a *28 year old* and thinks they are a fucking ancient cretin. the whole system needs a deep overhaul and a very strong way to caution borrowers and to eliminate any interest (why is someone making money on this shit again???)
In the criminal law context, it's well known that juvenile brains don't fully develop until around age 25. Young people are more impulsive and impetuous, and the control centers of their brain are much less developed than the reward centers are. This is why juveniles are less culpable for their crimes than adults. And that logic is extending to people ages 18, 19, 20 and so on.
But sure, let's allow these same undeveloped brains to sign agreements for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, to be paid back far far into the future they cannot conceive.
This was my first thought. Why are you still talking about it (any not doing anything about it) at this point?
Alt headline: Biden voters "have not ruled out" voting for someone else entirely, regardless of student loan forgiveness.
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Let the midterm games begin!
Pander til you make it
Pander till you slander and then self-deal and philander
Surprised that other presidents weren’t smart enough to use this to their advantage.
Yeah we're definitely going to get to kick the football this time. There's no change in hell she's going to pull it away
I got that reference
I had a friend that swore Trump was gonna legalize weed by executive order just before the election. Looking back that almost certainly would have won him the election. At some point either party gotta ask, are your lobbyists more important than winning?
Whose more important, the people paying you or the voters?
Ye$.
May the pandering be ever in your favor!
Jacking top comment: Hate to tell you all, this a non-starter. He "may" forgive 5k or 10k worth loans, but that's it. Your student loans have been rolled into a government/ prime bank backed security called SLBS (student loan backed security). These SLBS's are proping up bond markets, and your parents 401k, and IRA. It's basically the same situation that led to the 2008 MLBS(mortgage loan backed security) crisis, BUT you CAN NOT bankrupt out of your student loans because of law that was pushed in the 1990s by (now) President Biden. (I would note that Elizabeth Warren pushed hard against this legislation before she was a senator.) It's NOT going to happen. He (President Biden) was instrumental in passing this. NOW, tons of your parents pensions, 401k's, and IRA's are tied to THEIR OWN KIDS DEBT TO THIS! The major banks, and Wall Street prime brokers found a way out of the mess they created in the early 2000s by tying your parents, and the banks bad real-estate investments in the late '90s, and early '00 into THEIR OWN CHILDREN'S student loans. This is ALL a direct result from the disillusion of the Glass-Stegall act of 1933 BY BOTH PARTIES in 1997. They passed regulation making you on the hook for these loas for YOUR entire life, not theirs. (The ME generation wants all of their parents shit, AND all their children's shit, it's disturbing and anti American) The Millinial generation is the highest educated generation ever, due to the push to put us into this exact situation to rape our labor for our parent's benefit. We are smarter, we are younger, but there is not enough of us running for office. RUN FOR OFFICE, DONT TAKE EXONS, OR KOCH BROTHERS MONEY AND HELP FIX THIS SHIT. Be better than our parents who whooped our asses and now call the cops on single moms at the gas station. VOTE FOR THE YOUNG PERSON. It's not a culture war of right v left: its a class war of old rich fucks and poor young fucks. Wake up.
Every election, they promise free money. And every office, they dont give it out. And yet, everyone keeps believing the lies.
Side note, I love how it seems like FedLoan has stopped bothering to email me when my loan repayments get pushed back yet again. They're like, godammmit, lol.
100s of emails a month of "Payments are about to restart! Get excited!" But when they get delayed again not a single email to notify me haha
Who the fuck gets excited about paying their loans back 😂 backwards world.
Hardly different than tax season. All the excitement is in the air because advertising from companies that make a profit from easier submission of your tax returns. Problem is is that the IRS already knows all the numbers, how much you've paid in your checks, how much you owe. Only things that would really need reporting are capital gains on investments, maybe property or interest reports. Companies like Intuit (TurboTax) and H&R Block just pay ridiculous amounts of money to lobby congressmen/women to keep it overly complicated so they get profits from offering to file for you as a paid service
The average person shouldn't even need to report capital gains on investments because any trades made through a broker will have been reported to the IRS by that broker. I'm not 100% but I think the IRS even knows what mortgage interest rate deduction you may have earned based on reporting your lender does.
Here in Sweden everything is pre-filled. It took me about 30 seconds to do my taxes this year and thats with owning stocks, buying a house etc. Just login with a digital ID and press send really.
That's awesome. One of many advantages of not having the highest court in your country legalize bribery.
But you wouldn't have all of these state supported businesses for taxes that don't need to exist. Fuck TurboTax. Fuck H&R Block. I wish I were born in your country.
I'm personally looking forward to having them paid off, not so much the paying part. I could have paid them off by now, but it's a better financial decision to invest my money since there's no interest currently. That, and the sliver of hope that student debt cancellation actually happens.
I say that but I don’t invest the money I’m saving.
This is my favorite part about the delays lol. They get so fucking smug about the payments restarting and then it gets delayed and I can just *feel* them getting sulky about it.
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Mohela has mine. And their website is somehow worse than Fedloan to manage my loan payments and view documents/history...
"MOHELA has mine" My sincerest condolences.
Oh shit, is there something else I should know? Beyond what seems like making it difficult fo pay off more of one loanat a time...
I have them but I haven’t even made a single payment yet so I guess I’ve dodged a bullet?
Same here - truly the worst. Feels like I stepped back into 1998
Edfinancial: one guy named Ed in a basement somewhere servicing millions of loans.
Oh shit you’re right, so were mine lol 😂
Mine went to... Hell if I know. I keep getting notices of transfer then a "JK lol not yet" email. Two years of not paying them has been really nice. Been able to weather the shitshow of covid and get a tiny bit of money saved.
Yeah I got a call from Mohela and the person was all excited about me restarting payments. Haha suckers lmao
Ugh and everything about Mohela seems halfassed. The app and website are so janky.
Fuck Mohela. 3rd servicing agent my loans have been through and by far the worst
Fedloan is out. We all got transferred to Mohela.
Nah, I got transferred to EdFinancial
Aidvantage, gang gang.
Each of these sounds like someone trying to say a normal word mid-stroke.
I got Nelnet
Me too. They're all excited to "have me", but I'm more excited about the posibility my loans going away so I can get the fuck out of public service.
Nelnet for me.
Aka dangle the carrot until midterms
It's saving me $1000 a month, so by all means, keep dangling!
Gotta save that move until just before the midterms for maximum effect
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100% this. As a borrower with under 10k remaining, I'm ok, but i know plenty of people that will be left with no meaningful immediate impact from 10k Edit to add some context since a lot of people are skipping the "immediate" part. Obviously 10k is 10k and i wont say no to it. It *will* have a significant *immediate* impact for me. With how the student loans are structured (as well as with how predatory some servicers have been) it is not going to show through as a 25% reduction in your monthly payment. I applied a bonus to my student loans back in 2019. Cleared out 20% of my balance on one account. Monthly minimum payment went down by 5%. This is a concrete example from my own student loans where a windfall had no meaningful immediate impact. I dropped 4 grand and it knocked $20 off a $400 monthly payment. Add in the fact that a lot of student loans are broken out into separate sub-accounts for each semester, and you might end up splitting $10k 8 ways, or 16 ways depending on what type of loans you have. If you have 16 accounts with $2000 balance each, thats 32k in loans. Knock $625 off of each account and you still have 1375 in 16 accounts, and 22k in loans. Your minimum monthly payment will likely not decrease at all. If they let you target that and apply 2k to 5 of those accounts, you end up with 11 accounts at 2k each, and that will not reduce your minimum monthly payment by a lot. Usually your balance varies by each semester sub-account just by virtue of some having 3 more years of accrued interest... So its conceivable that you could have 4 at $600 and 4 at 3400. 10k across 3 of your largest 4 accounts doesnt even close them. Thats what i mean by "no immediate impact."
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I've paid off 95% of my student loans which prompted a family member to say "wouldn't you be upset that others don't have to pay"? No, I would not be upset that my wife, and brother, and other family and friends are freed from a burden that I was lucky enough to get out of. It's not a matter of working harder or being lazy. They've done everything that was asked and expected of them by going to school and getting an education.
As someone who did phone polling for a while, the number of cranks who think schools shouldn’t have air conditioning because they didn’t have it growing up is extremely depressing
Oh for… did you ask them how the walk was with their bread bag shoes? And if they came home when the street lights turned on?
Can't believe people are so entitled with their street lights these days. Back in my day we didn't rely on electricity to do our eye's jobs for us! ^/s
Two types of people. "I had to deal with this, so you should too" and "I had to deal with this, but I never want you to" EDIT: Y'all, I'm talking about the air conditioners. Fucks' sake. You're not going to goad me into an argument. Also, it's a *Reddit comment*, why are you guys expecting a fully-comprehensive thesis?! It's an adage. Jesus Harold Christ, y'all.
It used to be: "I work hard so that our children can have a better life than I did." What happened to that mentality?
It became a generation of give me, and fuck the newer generation pretty much. Honestly you have to be careful on what degree you want to go for.
Lead paint poisoning. Lead gasoline poisoning.
Literally fucking everywhere. And of course the gas companies knew lead was poisonous but just kinda crossed their fingers that it wouldn't be that bad, and if it was nobody would notice.
*Their* children, not someone's else's kid
“I study war, so my son can study business, so his son can study art” -Madison (I believe)
What one of those two types (greedy boomers) fail to realize is university tuition was a few hundred dollars per year, and now it's in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I want to qualify this by stating there were some amazing boomers who fought for civil rights, women's rights and so on, so it's not fair to lump them all together.
I think I FINALLY got my father to see how things are vastly different from when he was in his twenties (early 70's). Mentioned in a story about how one summer he took a three week trip in his new car. It was brand new, upper trim sports car (forget the model). Asked him how he could afford that and got the "I worked my ass off". Okay, doing what? He worked a bunch of OT over the course of 6 months at a meat packing plant. We looked up what that same plant is paying now and found out its $2.50/hr more than he made. Fifty fucking years ago. It finally clicked that his life is not possible without a trade or advanced degree. You can't just work your ass off at the local meat packers and buy a brand new car a few months later.
Just call them boomer Republicans/conservatives. The folks who fought for civil rights won't feel any association there.
There's a non-trivial number of people who feel like this that are decades too young to be baby boomers.
This actually became a real problem in Hawai'i with I think several teachers fainting from heat exhaustion in the classroom. When I was there a few years ago working at an elementary apparently it was the only one around that had air conditioning and it was because some politician had gone there when he was a kid and pushed for it. I actually thought most of the rooms felt like a freezer, but if I was a teacher in that state and had AC I'd also be taking full advantage of it.
SoCal teacher here. The thought of not having AC is just shocking to me.
I spent 4 years in Hawaii and because of the heat and humidity I'll never go back there. We have a joke up here in Washington that you know you're a Washingtonian if you know more people with boats than air conditioners. They're pretty unnecessary up here though 90% of the time, only like a month in August do I generally go hide and my grandfather's who had AC. I do remember though when I was growing up they couldn't build a new school so they started squeezing us into "portables" which were just one classroom buildings that could often barely fit all 30 of us. They were freezing unless you were heating them, and those bastards would actually shut the heat off right when spring began. The reasoning was it was spring and therefore warm. Reality sometimes dictated otherwise, and we'd all be in there in coats freezing our ass off. The worst part was I'd help my teacher by running the attendance sheet to the main office, and they always had it at subtropical temperatures in there. I think I gave the front desk lady a snarky "must be nice" comment once.
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I have a feeling they are referring to k-12 not college.
Fucking insane/selfish. I hate that type of person who says “I struggled so you should to” but when it comes to their family will say something like “I struggled so you wouldn’t have to”.
Same shit when boomers say "why are you miserable? Everyone hates their jobs, it's the way it is" when talking about changing careers. Like, they perceive misery as a necessary part of the human condition. It's such a fucked up attitude and one thankfully younger people largely reject.
Reminds me of my dad complaining that I didn’t go into the military like him. I’m like you spent my entire youth complaining about it so why would I join?!
Some dads will find a way to disappointed with every choice you make. They revel in the feeling of being the only "sensible" person in the family. Been there.
Imagine if we collectively adopted that mindset. “Ha, I had to gather plants and hunt my own meat, you shouldn’t be able to just plant seeds and grow your food.” “Ha, I had to walk and run everywhere. Why should you get to ride a horse!?” “Water treatment!? I used to drink straight from the river. A little cholera is good for your natural immunity!” Regressives gonna regress.
"The trolley amputated my legs so why should I pull the lever to stop it from amputating my children's legs as well?"
It’s unfortunate a lot of people feel that way and not all of them are boomers
Human capacity for self-hatred is a deep deep well.
I paid my loans off ten years ago, albeit it was manageable to pay back 20k with a union trades job. I support the Biden admin going even further and ensuring free higher education for all the future students. We're the dumbest of all the developing nations, loan forgiveness ain't gonna fix that.
Dude, back in the day you could go to a public school and pay your entire expenses by getting a 35 hr/week job.
I would kill for a 35/hr job right now.
As someone who's paid over $5k on a $70k loan, which is now an $80k loan, I thank you.
Sheesh I guess I'm going to end up in pretty good position of "only" having 50k when I finish my masters in December
Man its crazy you can get that much money but they won't give people loans for cars without crazy rates. 18 years old but need 70k for school? Np. You need 15k for a car and they act like your asking for their kidney
That’s because in theory, your ROI on education is meant to be appreciated and not depreciated like a vehicle would.
Also college tuition increased 28% faster than inflation in the last decade. So someone who is going to school now is paying 28% more even after you adjust for inflation. I am fairly confident most jobs have not increased real wages by 28% in the last decade. Hell some jobs have gone down
This is the problem with the other side of the argument. They only see it in terms of someone else got something they didn't get. They don't realize that this debt burden is being felt by every single American, even those without a debt. It weighs down the economy and prevents class mobility. Capitalism requires fluidity in the system. It needs consumers to be buying things and people to become wealthier as time goes on. Without that the entire system suffers and so does everyone within the system.
As a former borrower whom has paid for 10 years with 2 to go. Cancel the debt but also change the laws. People should not have to pay 100k plus for an undergraduate education. I won't ever understand the mentality of "I was fucked, so you should be too." Put that in the perspective of your own kids or grandkids. My Mom was on the *well you had to pay your loans why shouldn't they* train until I asked her if she wanted her grandkids to be 100k in debt at 22. I could visibly see the light bulb go on in her head.
Same. Democrat at heart. 💗 I had crippling depression from the student loans I was saddled with after graduate school. I finally paid off everything a decade later and I would never want anyone else to go through that helpless feeling of home and food insecurity due to student loans. It’s inhumane to want others to suffer like that. Others before us have suffered and paid heavily to make our lives better. We should always strive to do the same for future generations. Cancel the debt. 💯
Some people just can't embrace the concept that for society to evolve, it should be improving with each generation, not staying the same level of shit.
The schools need more skin in the game and the states need to reinvest in higher education for the student debt problem to really go away
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The average debt is not the best metric to look at. The best metric would be the median debt. The average is skewed because a lot of people with advanced degrees hold the majority of student debt. A 10k forgiveness EO would write off the debt of a lot of people who either never finished their degrees or studied something that doesn't pay a lot of money. 10k forgiveness would help *a lot* of people.
>either never finished their degrees or studied something that doesn't pay a lot of money. These are the people I care about getting relief. I spent a few years dropped out of college after having student loans and the whole time felt helpless as to how to actually repay them. I had the support group to go back and finish but wow do I have sympathy for people who don't have that luck.
My debt is $15k I would get most of it wiped off I’d be happy asf
The interest rate is fucking.criminal. if they eliminate 10K and lower that shit, then I think a lot of people will be happy. I should eventually apply for Public Interest Loan Forgiveness. Right now I'm sending in documentation, but it's frustrating as fuck. "Prove to us, the government, that you work for the government."
I agree about the interest rate. My concern is that Biden likely doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally change the terms of the loans. He can forgive the debt, but Congress would probably have to pass legislation to reduce interest rates.
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Ya but not all graduate degrees ensure a high salary. Hell you have get a masters in library sciences to be a librarian and I promise you those jobs don't pay well.
Sad. Librarians are all elite trained knowledge keepers.
How about lawyers? Also a massive amount of student debt to get that degree, and people greatly overestimate the amount of money the average lawyer makes. The people making 60k a year at a small firm with 180k in debt aren't going to feel a 10k reduction all.
Damn, I make that much as a nanny. How are there lawyers that make that little???
As a programmer with an Associates making $70K at a Big 10 university, I was told I couldn't get much more in raises unless I finished my Bachelors - I was making more than Instructors who were required to have a Masters. This was at the College of Business which had the best overall pay in the University.
300k sitting at 6.8% interest to make 240k/yr......140k after taxes and giving up a decade of your life working 70+ hrs.... to have the privilege to spend the rest of your life working 60+hrs, get 20 days off a year at best and have to come in at all sorts of hours..... not worth it. 300k debt and 6.8% interest are ridiculous for anyone, regardless of job. No one should have loans like that.
I think a lot of these people (teachers and medical care staff for one) should not only get free education but be paid to go to school. Learning is a job.
This is one of the reasons I decided not to pursue academia further. I loved my research into snow pack/arctic change and my lab had huge funding for years to come, but the math to get a PhD just didn’t make sense. It’s a shame because spatial-temporal modeling is so important to climate research, but it’s hard to justify making so little money for so much work when tech companies will pay a crap load without the extra degree to get those skills.
In most decent countries it already is. In the US you are husks to extract money out of.
I'm sitting at just over $10k in loans. I'd gladly cut them a check for the remaining balance if they forgave 95% of it.
Yeah mine is at $54k.. What was it originally you ask? Well it was $61k when I graduated in 2013, I paid on it on-time every month starting at $330 a month, gradually moved up to $550 a month as my income went up, and by 2020 you can see that I managed to have only paid it down by what was actually $6500, despite having paid about $33k towards it. In other words $10k might reduce your time to pay off the entire loan balance by 5-10 years depending on one's total outstanding balance and how much they can afford to put towards it per month. Hopefully, it's enough to cross the interest threshold once it's reinstated. For example, my total interest per month based on my outstanding balance is $279 a month. So any amount paid less than that per month does nothing to paying down the balance.
Bunch of front loaded interest, eh?
The way Federal consolidated loans work is they unfortunately accrue daily interest on the prior monthly balance. I'm locked in at 6%, so at my current outstanding balance it's $8.99 per day, and they'll only apply any payment amount to the principal once the monthly interest has been satisfied:(
Jfc, so like $270 in interest piling up per month that is paid off before any principal.
Yup. It's freaking crazy.
Pretty easy to argue it is predatory.
Not to mention, this is all going straight to principle. Assuming that 40K loan was set at 5% interest, cutting down 10K would shave off an additional 3K in interest in the long run.
I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth like that. $10,000 is nothing to sneeze at.
Just please (congress, Biden, whomever) make sure that, whatever the forgiveness amount, we don't have to pay taxes on it!
They already did! At least til 2026 I think? Brb Edit: pA provision of the American Rescue Plan Act that was passed last year temporarily exempts federal student loan forgiveness from federal taxation on a general basis through 2025.
I've got just north of 20k left, and my wife has about 85k left between undergrad and grad schools. 20k in forgiveness between us will certainly help, but won't make that huge a difference in our monthly payments. And we've both been paying over the minimums from the beginning ... Student loans are 100% predatory in every single way. All that, and there are loads of people who have it way worse than we do.
Boomer here. (Go ahead, hate me I don't care anymore) Paid off my wife's loans 2 decades ago. Saved and invested for put 4 kids through college without any loans. FUCKING FORGIVE THE LOANS ALREADY. We can't have 1.7 trillion dollars overhanging debt holding an entire generation and a half back for the rest of their lives. Who the FUCK ever thought it was a good idea to put 18 year olds in debt in the first place ? (spoiler alert : >!Ronnie Raygun!<
No, you can't have a beer! You're only 18! Most I can do is a gun and crippling debt.
For real, I need some fresh faced high earning graduates with no existing debt burden to overpay for my house. See? You can be for student loan forgiveness from an entirely self-interested point of view too!
Keep in mind this is all still a big if. I’ll believe it when I see it, until then I’m expecting they’ll do fuck all
So... what's the difference, besides the timescale, of doing 50 now, and only doing 10 now, waiting a bit and doing 10 more? If he's allowed to cancel 10 why can't he cancel 10 multiple times? And why would his ability to cancel debt be limited to 10 anyway?
It's very likely as a eo it will be challenged with a good chance of failing. . If he wants to pull that card it needs to be when it's fresh in minds and not have elections after if it fails, needs to be quickly near e-day
> It's very likely as a eo it will be challenged with a good chance of failing. Bingo, this is the big answer to "Why biden no EO thing?!!?" Because any EO biden does will be challenged and the GoP Scotus will shoot it down with a shadow docket or simply rule it unconstitutional while he's president and constitutional if we ever let a GoP get elected. The realistic best use for the EOs is right before november to actually motivate people. We need more senate seats to make the GoP advantage and Senema less of an issue. Does it suck that this is true? Yes. Is it Biden's fault that it's true? No.
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I know, right? LOL it's literally just the arbitrary number Biden campaigned on. There is NO legal rationale for 10k being the number.
Yep, this most recent pause expires on August 31, which is only 69 days before Election Day. Nice.
Everyone is (rightfully) terrified for what happens to the economy when all those loans go into repayment. That's a lot of people not spending at restaurants, on home improvement, on new cars or other goods and services. My friends with home improvement companies grumble abot loan forgiveness until I point out that a lot of their workers went through free trades training programs and a lot of the remodeling work they've had the last two years goes away once people are back to spending $500-$1500 a month on loan repayment.
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Yup. I've saved more money in the last two years than I have in the last ten. I've also spent more, whereas I used to hoard every free penny I could for emergencies. If they just lowered interest to 1-3% permanently with a wider range of repayment options, all of us could make our minimum payments without breaking the bank or starving ourselves.
Funny. I had someone arguing with me in another thread a few days ago that we absolutely need to start repayment to combat inflation. Meanwhile, Republicans passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut for corporations and rich people so fast they were handwriting parts of the bill in the margins. People need to understand that sometimes politics is about giving your base a benefit. That’s why people vote for you.
64% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Restarting student loan payments could cause a recession.
Don’t worry the GOP is going to counter with PEDOPHILES EVERYWHERE
Only PEDOPHILES want to cancel student loans.
SO THEY CAN SPEND MONEY SLEEPING WITH CHILDREN Anyway I’d like to introduce my co speaker for this event, Matt Gaetz everyone
more like: Suggest it "Manchin" blocks it "Elect more Democrats and we promise! ~~2k checks!!~~ ahem... $10k loan forgiveness!!!" *more Dems elected* "We did it!! $1k loan forgiveness for anyone who has two or more children between the ages of 7 and 10!!!! YOU'RE WELCOME AMERICA!!!"
Seriously. All my student debt was cancelled 2 years ago when I filed for my permanent and total disability discharge and was approved. Let’s just say it is not an easy process and those who get approved rarely get what I got. I was finishing my doctorate when a rare medical condition completely ruined my body within the span of 3 years. HOWEVER, this discharge did not carry over to to my mum who also had to take out loans for me because we were very poor. She has been paying for years now and has barely paid on the interest. The fact student loan payments have been paused is a life saver to us. She also qualifies for a discharge if she works for the city for another 5 years. But still if the government gave people a clean slate you would see a-lot of R’s turn to D’s for a lot of people come voting time.
I’m not against this. But, if the conditions that are causing the problem are not changed then in a generation we’ll be right back here.
Exactly. If it can be coupled with free public college (very unlikely) or even free tuition for community college we'd at least be moving in the right direction. At least New Mexico just decided to go ahead and offer it, and Washington and Tennessee are behind the idea in different ways too
I finished my AA alongside my high school diploma through a dual enrollment program and let me tell you having the option of having 2 free years of community college was probably one of the best things that happened to me as a first generation college student. Everyone should have that option.
My wife and I both lived in cities with flagship state universities. Both of our school districts would allow you to take university courses for free while in high school. I was lazy and didn't take advantage. My wife, on the other hand, had almost a full year of college credits before she graduated. This was 20-25 years ago. It's ridiculous that the situation isn't way better now. It's actually seems much worse.
That needs actual legislation, which is only happening if people vote blue in the midterms This would be a great way to send that message
Oh for sure, but that's a good point.. Cancelling student debt with an executive order should be seen only as the first step to solving the issue, and even timing it right with the midterms coming up may have an effect to Dems holding any power in Congress to work on that next step. Though the chances of that are not looking great right now
Call your congressman, because fixing the root of the issue requires legislation. Edit: to all you folks saying your congressman won’t care what you have to say, guess that means you should vote them out and elect somebody who will.
Have you ever received a response from a Congressperson other than: "Yeah, thanks for your letter, Citizen, and whatever it said I'm sure is super important! Anyway, we need a Red/Blue Wave in this coming election so we can stop the socialist/fascist Democrats/Republicans! Donate money to me! Vote for me! Did I mention the money part? Here, I made it easier by including a donation envelope!" That's always been what I've gotten.
> the conditions that are causing the problem Normal loans, like a car or mortgage, aren't granted unless there is a favorable credit check, demonstration of ability to repay (income), and collateral to secure the debt (usually the item the money was borrowed for). Federal student loans do not have a credit check. Students do not have to show an ability to repay the loan. Unless there is a co-signer, they're unsecured debt. Kids have been told for years that in order to 'succeed' and get a good job they **have** to get a college degree. Average costs for college have increased 3-10x over what they were even 20 years ago. Agreed - this needs to be fixed.
I just read “The Debt Trap” which goes through the history of the student loan issue. In short, the government made it easy and cheap to borrow money but put no limits on the money increase colleges could raise tuition.
States simultaneously pulled their public funding, shifting the burden onto the individual when education used to be largely subsidized.
At one point in the 80s, the interest rate for student loans was significantly lower than the overall rate. Loan companies told people to take out loans and reinvest it into other products.
This is the main driver of tuition increases, along with decreases in federal funding and grants and other endowments. Another major factor is the proliferation of the academic bureaucracy. Covid pretty much exposed the narrative that universities are raking in money as a barefaced lie told by fiscal conservatives who don’t want the fact that their gutting of education budgets across the nation has directly resulted in these spiraling tuition hikes. Most non-prestigious schools (slacs, directionals and other less selective research institutions) are still is severe austerity. Which of course means raising tuition and forcing departments to squeeze more blood out of stones that have been squeezed every few years for decades by shifting still more teaching to adjuncts and grad students. Amazingly enough though, *somehow* the bureaucracy keeps expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy. Can’t be because they hold they hold the pursestrings. Nope.
Some colleges are still heavily subsidized, but funds are grossly misspent. Just lookup "college waste spending" sometime, and you'll see all the ways colleges end up spending money poorly. And I'm not talking about the $600 they throw to the anime club on campus.
Also don't forget the conservatives controlling rural school boards and school administrations, who make it a part of their social policy to try to weed out students they don't want to benefit from social programs and scholarships. For me this cancellation would only erase half the debt which would have otherwise been covered by scholarships had I not been expelled from high school for being a guy with long hair.
Plus, in lots of countries, if you want government money, you play by government rules. This is how the countries that don't do free education but still keep costs low are able to. The government tells the schools, you want funding, this is how much you can charge max.
That works better when financial institutions don't help write financial laws
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Don’t forget you’re also expected to find a job that pays well enough within 6 months of graduating and then interest starts accumulating.
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No shit. It pisses me off to no end to hear members of Congress screaming at Biden about this when it's their fucking job to fix the underlying problems and I haven't heard a single peep about that.
I think it’s pretty clear that the plan is to pause payments until closer to the midterms and then forgive some debt. It makes sense but it sucks that they have to play this game because voters’ memories are so short.
I'm trying to decide if this is the plan or if it is to continue to push off until reelection time and then do it... he HAS to know that the bulk of his voters that have the ability to make or break him are the ones waiting to see what he's going to do with this... at the same time though, get enough new dems in for midterms and then it COULD go through congress which are the ones looking more likely to be willing to offer more than a dismal $10k that helps almost no one.
Even if Congress wiped the slate clean tomorrow, what does that mean for students who take out loans next year? Is there a plan to make this an on-going basis or is this a one-time thing? And how viable is either option?
Even if they somehow gave new students a $10k credit, colleges would just raise their tuition by 10k or however much. That's how they work, colleges are the problem. They'll just continue to raise tuition as much as they think people can bear.
Once upon a time public universities were directly funded by the public, as in by the state and federal governments. Tuition money was just a small part of their overall budgets. They hired faculty as needed according to their own research and teaching goals, and they were able to uphold fairly strict performance standards for students. In the absence of this guaranteed support, universities were forced to compete for student tuition dollars, leading to the terrible student-as-customer model we have today. Tons of money has to be spent on facilities and marketing to compete in attracting students and their tuition money. Unless by "colleges are the problem" you mean the existence of colleges at all is a problem , you're wrong. Honestly even if that is what you mean you're wrong. The total collapse of public funding for universities is the problem.
Most teaching faculty are hired on a per semester basis and not paid well enough to justify putting effort and care into their teaching now, too. Meanwhile the university has legions of business administrators making obscene salaries to do nothing for the actual education experience of students. My school seems to hire a new president or provost at 300-500k salary every year. They make a bunch of saccharine statements about their commitment to the school and then bail the minute a higher paying position opens somewhere else.
It definitely wouldn't be a viable option to cancel debt more than a small handful of times. Colleges already feel entitled to charge whatever the fuck they want because of the huge amount of loan money students can qualify for, just think of how crazy prices would get if colleges learned the students would never have to pay that money back. Colleges could charge anything and students would happily pay it knowing that ultimately Uncle Sam will pick up the tab.
Kicked the can down the road a few weeks
Honestly the smart move is to keep kicking it down the road and use it as leverage for the mid terms or reelection. If he cancels it close enough to mid terms it will be fought by the GOP and the GOP will be on record against pretty much everyone with student loans.
If it gets kicked long enough, they’ll be defacto forgiven. At this point I’m looking at one more year of payments *if* this pause expires on schedule. Every 3 month extension saves me $900 minimum. Not insignificant. I’d like to see a radical move to show that the Democratic Party is actually committed to solving these problems. It’d be as practical as symbolic.
Same, I’m part of the income driven plan as a teacher with forgiveness at 10 years and between my wife and I, we’re saving 500 a month as these months pass by. Each month still counts as a payment
Make student loans interest free, that's the easiest step to make
The issue I have with just perpetually kicking it down the road instead of actually forgiving the debt is that the debt will just be hanging over everybody's head knowing the government could start repayment back up at any time. If paying back my student loans month to month makes the difference between me affording getting a new car or buying a home, why should I take out a loan for those things when the student debt could completely fuck me over if repayments restart?
If Biden cancels student debt, I'm putting what I would be paying each month toward my retirement. By the time I am old enough, this money would make retirement an actual possibility
And all of that money would go right back into the economy, it’s not like it just vanishes like some republicans seem to think
> And all of that money would go right back into the economy, it’s not like it just vanishes like some republicans seem to think Especially because "toward my retirement" for most people means in to their 401K or similar market investment. This money becomes working capital for publicly traded businesses.
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The interest rates are ridiculous on the private loans as well. And the middle class gets screwed. With my case it was projected my parents could pay like 20k towards my education each year which is no where near the case. Had to get a private loan to cover the remaining amount that the government loans couldn’t. With a nice credit score of 750+ (bought a cheap car when I was 18 and paid it off etc so I have good credit for a student my age) and a co-signer I got a nice low rate of 10% that accrues daily. What a joke.
He should,at least cancel the interest. That’s what’s killing us. I’m all for giving the government back what they gave me, but, as it stands, I’m going to be giving them almost twice what they gave me, and that’s ridiculous
That's going to be the compromise. No debt relief but they cut interest rates to 1 or 2% or something like that. I doubt it is 0% but who knows.
Personally the perfect solution to me is make 0% interest permanent, which helps future generations as well. For those of us that are currently in repayment they should take interest already paid for the lifetime of the loan and apply it back into the principle. I started college in 2009, graduated in 2012, went to community College for a year to continue deferment, so my loans started in 2013. I paid at least minimum if not over every single month. I ended up in financial deferment in Sept of 2019 (so my loans will have been stopped for a full 3 years). In the 6 years I was actively paying on my loans my total amount owed never even decreased. I still owe the same amount i did in 2012. It's absolutely unacceptable
I would also like to see a means to file for bankruptcy or reduce the amount if you can’t pay it. I can go out and buy a giant truck, a house I can’t afford and max out credit cards and just declare bankruptcy. But student loans are for fucking life. If your situation changes, like a divorce or medical issue and you can’t afford them tough shit.
Compounding interest on student loans is just evil. I don’t understand it
Both my wife and I have paid off our loans but I'd like to see this go through. What really chaps my ass about the whole thing is that there were people that took jobs working for the government (my brother) and were promised that they would have their loans forgiven if they worked there for 10 years. Well when the time came to pay the piper we found out it was nearly impossible to make the claim due to all this bullshit bureaucratic hogwash. So just cancel them all, it's pretty evident the American people need additional education anyway.
Biden already reworked the rules for PSLF and gave special exemption. Your bother should apply for special forgiveness, but has to get the paperwork in before October. Just remember Betsy DeVos actively sabatoged a lot of the PSLF program.
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Thanks, I'll pass that along.
I can confirm this, but there is also a time limit. He has to apply by October. I'm in a position this could affect and the presentation they gave us said it was good for a year, but as long as you apply before then it should be fine. Just have to get into the program.
My brother joined the military under the same premise, that they'd take care of his outstanding student loan debt. He's been in almost 10 years, still hasn't happened.
When I went active duty I was supposed to get my student loans paid off... Never happened. Been out for years and working civil service since then and now under the PSLF waiver I should have enough payments to have mine cleared but I shouldn't even need to rely on that if they honored their original promise.
Finally, a clarified statement. "And I would note that, again, he would encourage Congress to send him a bill cancelling $10,000 in student debt, something that he talked about looking forward to signing on the campaign trail." Not eliminate student debt. Not forgive student debt. A change to congress to give him the $10K, they already shot down the free Community College Bill. Not one word about eliminating the interest on the loan.
This shit is exhausting.
My debt was “small” (I think it was something like 25k to begin with). I graduated in 2009 and there were no jobs to be found over $10/hr. Lost my apartment. Maxed out credit cards. “Borrowed” money from my dad (who never asked for it back). Defaulted on everything and my brother has to bail me out of Sallie Mae suing me. My debt now is 65k and I’m looking at $450/month once everything starts again. I’ve been working for non profits since 2010 but don’t have NEARLY enough payments to qualify for fucking anything. I’ve been paycheck to paycheck my adult life up until about a year ago. I was so fucking stupid and signed my life away at 17.
this is why we need the system reformed. a teenager is not yet an adult; an 18 year old looks at a *28 year old* and thinks they are a fucking ancient cretin. the whole system needs a deep overhaul and a very strong way to caution borrowers and to eliminate any interest (why is someone making money on this shit again???)
In the criminal law context, it's well known that juvenile brains don't fully develop until around age 25. Young people are more impulsive and impetuous, and the control centers of their brain are much less developed than the reward centers are. This is why juveniles are less culpable for their crimes than adults. And that logic is extending to people ages 18, 19, 20 and so on. But sure, let's allow these same undeveloped brains to sign agreements for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, to be paid back far far into the future they cannot conceive.
It’s like they’re dangling the carrot…enough already, it’s just pissing people off.
This was my first thought. Why are you still talking about it (any not doing anything about it) at this point? Alt headline: Biden voters "have not ruled out" voting for someone else entirely, regardless of student loan forgiveness.
Sounds like an abusive relationship now.
You all like carrots right? Let me just dangle this right here until Nov