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.

    • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

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

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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          11 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.

        • ohlaph@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I feel like education should be free for everyone, especially people in public service because that is usually challenging work and often well below market pay.

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          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.

          • SoleInvictus@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I thought you had to turn off the lights in the bathroom of a Better Business Bureau, hold a copy of The Wall Street Journal between your legs, and say his name backwards three times fast whilst flapping your arms like a chicken.

            Or is that how you summon the ghost of Alan Greenspan? It all blends together after awhile.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      11 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.

  • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • popcap200@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • DrDr@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        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.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Yeah, but that’s progressive…

      We keep electing democrats that think fixing something at once would be too disruptive.

      So they stretch the smallest amount of progress as long as they can, even if that doesn’t make up for damage Republicans do.

      Its been like 80 years since moderate Dems told FDR that it was too soon for universal healthcare and Americans had to wait a few more years to make sure it’s a good idea.

      And they’re still fucking saying they need to look into it more. It’ll never be time. Student Debt relief shows every indication that it’s going to be the same thing.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Good thing we elected a career politician who said his decades of Senate experience meant he could get Republicans in the Senate and house to vote for progressive legislation…

          Oh, that’s right…

          I forgot Dems had the Senate, House, and presidency for 2 years…

          But that highly experienced career politician told us trying to change even a single politicians mind (even if they were in his own party) was an impossible task so he wouldn’t even try.

          Welp, at least we’re not running him again since the whole reason he said he was the man for the job turned out to be something he was lying about…

          That would seem like a terrible plan

          • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            he could get Republicans in the Senate and house to vote for progressive legislation

            He said he could work with Republicans to get bipartisan legislation passed. And he has, including the Electoral Count Reform Act.

            In addition to bipartisan legislation he has also passed progressive legislation, but as everyone expected that was along party lines.

          • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            During those 2 years Manchin and Sinema weren’t actually Dems and voted against most major progressive legislation, only voting for minor stuff if progressive.

          • Cowlitz@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I’m not a fan of him either. Though he hasn’t done much of what I’ve wanted, he’s been more progressive than I expected. Tbh it sounds like he would have been better off politically if he hadn’t touched student loans. Im finding other progressives aren’t realistic on this issue and do not seem to want to encourage behavior they want from politicians. Way to encourage other politicians not to make attempts like this. Biden would be getting raked over the coals less if he had done nothing. That doesn’t mean dont be critical when its warranted, but don’t expect anybody to take you seriously when you claim he didn’t try. Were you a fly on the wall listening in? You not being there doesn’t mean conversations didnt happen. Its an unfounded claim that doesn’t acknowledge the good changes he HAS accomplished. You just don’t care about those because you weren’t personally impacted. No different than every other selfish voter who gave us Trump.

            You are foolish if you think individual politicians can make more progressive shit happen on their own. So many “progressives” only care about the end results and how they are personally helped. That makes you no different than any other voter and its also why we will never make progress until people like you cut the crap and grow up. Incremental progress is still progress. The only time it is not is when its something like setting up a healthcare program and underfunding it so bad it makes the masses hate it. In cases where shit is already fucked, making it slightly less fucked is a good thing.

            Personally I actually want politicians to move left. So I celebrate when they make steps in that direction. You are playing into exactly what the Supreme Court was trying to accomplish with its bs decision. The point was to hurt him politically. If you do not reward politicians for moving left and are extra critical of any who make attempts to do what you want, you are only telling them not to bother.

            He wasn’t my choice but he’s what we have. We may as well try to use him instead of throwing a tantrum about what could have been. Most neolibs wouldn’t have done anything and he surprised me when he did. The primaries are the place for idealism. The general is the place for realism.

          • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Oh, but what more could you ask of him? He tried once and the Supreme Court said no, and that’s all he can do. Sure, when Trump wanted to ban Muslims from the country and the Supreme Court told him no he just changed one or two small details and issued the same order again and again and again until the Court gave up, but Biden couldn’t possibly do something like that here because it wouldn’t be very polite. You don’t want a rude president, do you?

            /s

      • Wermhatswormhat@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I’m not sure why this comment is so controversial. It’s exactly what’s happening. We’ve been talking about this now for forever and almost nothing is happening. It’s wonderful that 74,000 people get some relief but that’s a drop in the ocean. I want it badly but I’ve almost accepted the fact that it’s probably not going to happen.

          • azimir@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            Including me under the TEPSLF. I was on track to hopefully finish paying off my loans at age 63, but with the TEPSLF it counted the ten years I had already done so they were forgiven after the ten years of public service work I did.

            Thank you House/Senate Dems and president Biden!

          • Wermhatswormhat@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Sure, I agree the extra 3.4 million people have gotten relief or forgiveness is not nothing, but out of the 45.3 million people (quick Google search) with student loan debt that’s only 13%. It’s great, we’re on the path, but 87% of people still haven’t seen any kind of help, and were drug along being promised help for the last 3 years.

            • DesertCreosote@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              “It’s only 13% and not 100%, so it doesn’t count!”

              The Supreme Court blocked his attempt last year to forgive debt for another 43 million people, which was set to take effect before repayments started back up. He’s trying to help but is being blocked by conservatives who want him to fail so Trump can be reelected.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          The supreme court stopped them forgiving 460 billion a wide acope. Instead, his admin has forgiven 141 billion in a narrower, but still huge, scope. Its far, far more than any other admin has ever forgiven, and still going.

          If 30% of “an ocean” is just “a drop,” thats one hell of a drop.

          Hell, if he had just promised to forgive the equivalent of 10k like he intended on the campaign trail, his admin would be more than half way there, and climbing.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Lots of moderates want to keep copying the Republican party, even the part where no one is allowed to question any politician who has the right letter next to their name.

          They think it’s better to live with the problems and not talk about them let alone solve them.

          Which is pretty much the whole problem.

          • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            You’re allowed to ask questions. You just don’t like the answers.

            In this case, the answer is that debt forgiveness is happening, but you weren’t paying attention.

              • notabot@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                I couldn’t find a source for how much total Biden has forgiven, but I’d be shocked if the percentage doesn’t start with a decimal point.

                It’s north of $136B in total. If you couldn’t find that, you may not have looked today, as it’s definitely been reported. I’ll let you work out the percentage, but it certainly doesn’t begin with a decimal point.

                • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  80 years ago moderates said before we could all have universal healthcare, we should settle for orphans, widows, and those with disabilities.

                  And that in a few years we might get it for everyone else after they looked into it.

                  Couple generations later and moderates are still saying they’re looking into it…

                  Why do you think Student Loan debt will be different?

              • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                I couldn’t find a source for how much total Biden has forgiven, but I’d be shocked if the percentage doesn’t start with a decimal point.

                Prepare to be shocked. It’s close to 8%.

                https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/19/biden-to-forgive-4point9-billion-in-student-debt-for-73600-borrowers.html

                Also, if you couldn’t find a source then you either didn’t actually try to find a source, or you aren’t smart enough to google “how much student loan debt Biden has forgiven.” The answer was in the first result.

  • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

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

    bOtH sIdEs aRe tHe sAmE!!!

  • gastationsushi@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    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@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

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

      He should have lied like they would.

    • MrMcGasion@lemmy.world
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      11 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.

  • J12@lemmy.world
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    11 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.

    • Verdant Banana@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      do not think trump would be better

      better if enough people either voted someone other than the red and blue corpos or nobody at all in protest

      biden’s list of achievements on behalf of the american people or lack there of is totally relevant to me and a lot more people I’d wager

      maybe I would be able to participate and vote if biden had lived up to his campaign promises or lived up to supposed “democrat” values for that matter

      democrat and republican corporate slime have kept americans down

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Greedy universities

      Banks, thousands of other kinds of predatory businesses that prey on students: “Ha, yes, yes! ‘Geeedy universities,’ that’s the ticket!”

  • hark@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    That’ll really cut down the 1.7 trillion dollar student loan problem.

  • Doorbook@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    He want these younger votes so bad, lets see if this continues after he get elected second term.

  • Verdant Banana@lemmy.world
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    fuck you biden for again putting a stipulation on your promises and only helping a select few

    https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1595/forgive-student-loan-debt-public-colleges-and-univ/

    either forgive it all or just forget about it tired of my hopes going up every time a biden is living up to his campaign promises article comes

    silent joe waited until election year to have anything to say

    justice delayed is justice denied