this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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President Biden announced Friday that his administration is forgiving $5 billion in student debt for another 74,000 borrowers, marking the latest round of debt cancellation since the Supreme Court voided the president's student loan forgiveness program.

Mr. Biden said that of the borrowers who can receive relief, nearly 44,000 are teachers, nurses, firefighters and others who are eligible for forgiveness after working 10 years of public service. Almost 30,000 of those who will have their debt wiped clean have been repaying their loans for at least 20 years, but did not get the relief they earned through income-based plans, the president said.

With the latest round of student loan forgiveness, more than 3.7 million Americans have had their debt erased under the Biden administration, Mr. Biden said.

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[–] [email protected] 125 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It's insane that they made 5b off of just 74k people in the first place

[–] [email protected] 79 points 7 months ago (2 children)

That's nearly 70k per person. For education. That's...that's greed on an evil level

[–] jballs 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Yeah, now that you mention it, that's fucking nuts. On average, $67,500 worth of outstanding balance for these people who went into public service. That doesn't even take into account what they've already paid in principal and interest over the years.

Edit: it's actually $72,892 per person being forgiven for people that have worked in public service for more than a decade.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

That's just about exactly what my wife owes and she's 2 years away from PLSF freedom. fingers crossed

PS - I paid off my loans and I hope y'all get all yours forgiven.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Careful, you might accidently summon him. No one knows the exact incantation to bring him back and frankly I'd rather add "reanimated corpse of Reagan appointed to state department" to the 2025 bingo card.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 months ago

What's insane is this is barely a drop in the bucket...

There's over 1,770 billion in student loans debt.

When people say 1.77 trillion, it might not be immediate how little a few billion is to the larger issue.

But it's only around 0.2% of total debt. Probably less because the 1.77 trillion is rounded, and at this scale that's what 5 billion is. A rounding error they don't even include that digit when talking about the total amount.

[–] [email protected] 98 points 7 months ago (34 children)

Let's do all of it, and put in place a solution for all future student loans. They are robbing us blind right now, and costing future generations a chance at a debt free life.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 7 months ago (1 children)

He did do a lot more! I mentioned it in another comment a week ago, but look into what his save plan does. Lowers costs, lowers interest, increases forgiveness, etc. etc.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Save plan lowered my effective interest rate to around 2%. I'll still have to pay a lot over the next 20 years, and if the tax bomb is not removed it will be another 100,000. However my cash flow is much improved and how much I pay total has decreased drastically.

Still fighting with my student loan servicer to set me up on the plan correctly, but that is a different can of worms. The servicers need to have their contracts nullified for how terrible they have been.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Definitely better than a kick in the teeth, but it’s a shame the Supreme Court nixed the bigger loan forgiveness plan. I’m glad to see Biden is still trying to live up to his promise as much as he can given the obstructionist Congress and Supreme Court.

Here in Australia, our student loans are given and managed by the Australian Tax Office, and while they technically don’t accrue interest they are “indexed” according to inflation (CPI specifically) once per year, every year. Our repayments just come out of or income like regular income taxes - that means that the repayments are tax-deductible too. We usually get indexed around 2-3% per year but last year it was almost 8% which hit really hard. Most degrees also fall under the Higher Education Commonwealth Support (HECS) program which drastically reduces their total cost too.

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Forgiving 5B in student debt VS inciting riot to overthrow our government...

bOtH sIdEs aRe tHe sAmE!!!

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (2 children)

well one side didn't go to college so this is basically a nothing burger to them

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

BUT IF I DID AND I ALREADY HAD PAID IT ID BE JUST AS PISSED AS I AM NOW THAT I CANT DRAG ANYONE ELSE DOWN

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

DRAG??? WHAT ARE YOU SOME KIND OF FREAK?!

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

My lender has been sitting on my application for PAYE since September. And I doubt it ever gets processed as it won't help their bottom line.

Biden should have left the debt pause indefinitely and fight judges who ruled against himself. The courts allow delays. This would gain him back a lot of support and it would cost him zero political capital.

[–] csm10495 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yep. He told Republicans he would stop pausing it to pass funding for the government.

He should have lied like they would.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

I mean, yes?

It's time to fucking play hardball with these creeps instead of this milquetoast turn the other cheek bullshit.

They want to play the game like that, so they are setting the ground rules. Acting like we have to keep one hand tied behind our back during a fight with them is fucking stupid. Get that arm out and throw sand in their fucking eyes.

Pocket sand!

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (1 children)

For a second I thought this said Biden is forgiving $5 and assumed this is the onion.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

I might be included in one of the recent rounds of forgiveness (the one where if you have under 12k in loans taken out and have kept up with payments for over 10 years). I've paid off all but about $250 of it, and even making the minimum payment, I'll have it paid off in around 4 months anyway. Unless they move at breakneck speeds by government standards, by the time they actually get everything processed, $5 sounds about right. Which hey, if that ends up being how it goes, I get a free ice cream cone on Uncle Joe. Can't complain about that.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Not a bad move from Biden here.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Good call, but we need to fix the underlying problem that is the ridiculous price for higher education. With every piece of information online I find it very hard to believe we can’t get average annual tuition down from 20k a year.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

Averages out to be 67,567.56 per.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Cool, but will that solve anything? Greedy universities still win in this scenario.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Greedy universities

Banks, thousands of other kinds of predatory businesses that prey on students: "Ha, yes, yes! 'Geeedy universities,' that's the ticket!"

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago

It's a small measure but it's better than nothing. We need free public universities but that's outside of a presidents unilateral authority.

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