White House cancels $5 billion in student debt for 74k borrowers - eviltoast
The announcement is the latest in a series of loan forgiveness actions by the administration after the Supreme Court last year struck down Biden's much broader plan.

The announcement is the latest in a series of loan forgiveness actions by the administration after the Supreme Court last year struck down Biden’s much broader plan.

In a new wave of student loan forgiveness, the Biden administration is canceling $5 billion in debt for 74,000 borrowers, many of whom worked in public sector jobs for more than a decade.

President Joe Biden said that 44,000 of Friday’s approved borrowers were having their education debt wiped clean after 10 years of public service, and that those borrowers included teachers, nurses and firefighters. Nearly 30,000 borrowers have worked toward repayment for at least 20 years but “never got the relief they earned through income-driven repayment plans,” Biden said in a statement.

It’s the latest round of loan forgiveness efforts after the Supreme Court struck down the White House’s student loan debt relief plan last year. Since the ruling, the White House has launched a series of smaller relief programs.

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
    22·
    10 months ago

    Here’s the fact sheet for the first cancellation move: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-student-loan-relief-for-borrowers-who-need-it-most/

    $5-10k for lower- and middle-income borrowers. The legal challenge was that this was discriminatory (and it was.)

    If the first action the Biden administration took was to cancel all the student debt the federal government guaranteed, the legal challenge would have fallen flat because the “injured parties” would not have been injured. Instead we’ve gotten this piecemeal bullshit designed to appease voters who are justifiably angry with the Biden administration but will have minimal impact on the actual problem of student debt or availability of higher education.

      • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
        12·
        10 months ago

        I do. One of Biden’s longest-running bases of support is the financial industry, and any move that might suggest debt shouldn’t be a fact of life will scare the banks. In a more general sense, Biden is as much a machine democrat as Hillary Clinton, and for them anything that might disrupt the status quo is an absolute no-go. Student debt forgiveness for all would be a massive shock to the status quo.

        • Potatofish@lemmy.world
          42·
          10 months ago

          That’s too conspiratorial for me. I’d have to see evidence of some kind other than past associations.

          • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
            1·
            10 months ago

            Thats the problem with politics pretty much anywhere. You rarely get anyone spelling out their actual motives. For an example of what it sounds like when a political strategist speaks openly, google “Lee Atwater southern strategy.”

            All politicians talk and think like that, it’s just they’re usually really good about hiding it.