After much will or no will, President Joe Biden has finally escaped his Ross-and-Rachel dynamic with student loan relief.
Today, Biden announced he is canceling $10,000 in student loan debt per federal borrower for those earning less than $125,000 a year. Pell Grant recipients will see up to $20,000 of their student loans forgiven, with the same income cap. The president also extended the student loan payment pause through January and reduced monthly payments under an income-based repayment plan from half to 5% of an undergraduate borrower’s discretionary income. .
In modern real talk, Biden announced his decision via Twitter. And the masses have responded by saying that the forgiveness plan is not enough for everyone.
“This only applies to undergraduate loans, so it actually sucks and it’s wrong,” wrote user Michael O’Neill Burns of Biden’s income-based reimbursement plan. In a Separate Tweethe wrote that he would not vote for Biden in the future.
But others felt that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush. Sam Sanders, podcast host of In it, wrote of the income-based repayment plan, “For people who only have undergraduate loans, it’s still something!!!”
A lawyer added that excluding graduate school from the new monthly cap “is a big middle finger for social workers, public interest lawyers, rural doctors, etc. The message is that if you went to the graduate school, you’d better become a company”.
Many have called for Biden to take more action, insisting the relief does not scratch the surface of student debt. “Joe Biden said you can’t have too much loan forgiveness or it’ll ruin your supper,” comedian Vinny Thomas said. said.
“It does NOTHING for the poorest borrowers, black women in particular. It’s a slap in the face and won’t even cover my interest (which will continue to grow). Cancel everything!!!” another user tweeted to Biden.
Student debt has a disproportionate impact on black women: an Education Trust study found that women in general hold two-thirds of the collective student debt in the United States, but that black women are particularly affected by student debt.
Others pointed out that while forgiveness is a step in the right direction, it has done nothing against predatory practices. An user who identifies as @goawaymom said she’s really grateful her small amount of federal loans were forgiven, but is upset that ‘private predatory lenders like Sallie Mae and Navient’ weren’t addressed , adding that they were “targeting” middle and lower-class families.
All this dissatisfaction with the long-awaited news has become a joke in itself, according to satirical site Reductress share a sarcastic headline titled “How to Drive Everyone Mad at You by Forgiving Just a Small Amount of Student Loan Debt”.
But many people felt more relief than unhappiness. “Personally, if Joe Biden forgives even $10,000 of my student loans, I’ll hang a little picture of him in my living room like an Italian grandma does with the Pope,” one person said. joked.
And the income-based repayment plan is supposed to help create more equity. Bloomberg White House Correspondent Justin Sink said that this would have a huge impact on low- and middle-income borrowers, especially those who have just graduated.
As even Burns, who wrote the “it sucks and it’s wrong” tweet, notes, it’s a nuanced question. He recognize that progress has been made: “I’m happy for them! It just makes no sense for the WH not to apply this same IBR plan to graduate loans when tons of teachers, nurses, librarians, social workers, etc. have graduate debts that are growing at huge rates due to compound interest.
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