Biden cancels student loans for 150,000 more borrowers
www.nbcnews.com
The latest tranche of debt forgiveness brings the number of people benefiting from student loan cancellations to more than 5 million, the president said.

Summary

President Biden announced student loan forgiveness for 150,000 additional borrowers, raising the total to over 5 million under his administration.

The latest beneficiaries include borrowers defrauded by schools, individuals with disabilities, and public service workers.

Biden emphasized his focus on expanding pre-existing forgiveness programs after his broad plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2023.

Conservatives and Trump argue the efforts overstep executive authority and unfairly shift costs.

Biden called the initiative a fulfillment of his promise to reduce financial barriers to education.

  • MicroWave@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    437·
    5 days ago

    Literally what he did in the next paragraph:

    The Biden administration has focused on revising and expanding federal student loan forgiveness programs that existed before Biden took office. That approach allowed the administration to expand loan forgiveness options despite its failure to implement new federal forgiveness programs after the Supreme Court struck-down Biden’s initial plan in 2023.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2347·
      5 days ago

      focused on revising and expanding federal student loan forgiveness programs

      But no specifics…

      If your school defrauded you, you don’t have to pay.

      That’s been a thing since 2015.

      The second is if you have permanent disabilities.

      That went into effect 2013.

      The last is PSLF which has also been around much longer than Biden.

      Biden has done nothing to expand who is applicable for any of those things.

      So why are people clapping for him?

      • Reasonable_Guy@lemmy.world
        12·
        4 days ago

        You’re right, these are all existing programs that Biden’s following. I don’t think he deserves a round of applause for doing the bare minimum, but we know that Trump will either try to skirt around these programs or remove them completely.

        This will likely be the last bit of loan forgiveness we see for the next 4 years.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
        1·
        4 days ago

        I would add, he made a big deal about loan forgiveness for people who would go on to work in underpriveleged communities, which was always a thing.

        Really the only new program he implemented which wasn’t immediately overturned by the courts was forgiveness for people who a) borrowed $12,000 or less and b) hadn’t missed a loan payment for 10 years.

        Which they CLAIM is a whole bunch of people, but nobody stops to ask “Hey, if you borrowed $12,000 or less and haven’t missed a payment in 10 years, how much is actually outstanding on that loan?” Or better “What degree costs $12,000 or less?”