Borrowers making up to $125,000 individually or $250,000 per household will receive $10,000 in federal student loan debt forgiveness if they didn’t receive a Pell Grant in college or $20,000 if they received a Pell Grant in college.
No refund will be offered if you already paid back your student loan or if you don’t owe the full $10,000 or $20,000.
The President also announced that the pandemic era student loan repayment pause will be extended through the end of this year.
Additionally going forward the President has proposed that undergraduate loan payments will be capped at 5% of discretionary monthly income, down from 10%. Borrowers making less than 225% of the federal poverty level will not have to make any payments. Loan balances under $12,000 will also be forgiven after 10 years of making payments, down from 20 years. Unpaid monthly interest will also be waived as long as monthly payments are made.
In separate news, NY Governor Hochul announced expanded eligibility for up to $50,000 in recovery grants for NY small businesses with fewer than 100 employees.
Loading ...
Leave a Reply
136 Comments On "President Biden Forgives Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars In Student Debt, Up To $20,000 Per Borrower; NY Small Business Recovery Grants Expanded"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
My mortgage identifies as a student
I wonder if the same people who voted on this thread that it shouldn’t have been done would also agree that no foreign aid money should be given, including to Israel.
What does one thing have to do with the other? Foreign aid (theoretically) is given to serve a country’s interests abroad. The US has an interest in supporting a democracy ally in the Middle East. What national interest is there in just wiping out debt?
I don’t agree with this move by the president and think its stupid.
but as a jew its hard to argue that there is no national interest in wiping out debt, the Torah is very focused on that in several ways, including removing all loan balances every seven years… there are lots of reasons proffered, including to make sure people don’t lose hope and just fall further down a rabbit hole into eventual sin/theft or worse.
We will also all be begging for debt forgiveness in about a month before hashem…
When loans were forgiven in a time of debt forgiveness during shemita, it was calculated into the original loan. for example limiting the amount of exposure to each borrower.
When student loans are forgiven in the plan outlined, it encourages colleges to continue to raise tuition even when they’re granting degrees that don’t lead to jobs. We’re also being extremely unfair not only to the general tax payer who has to cover it, but particularly to those who already paid for their own college without the government’s $10 or $20,000 help, and we’re being especially cruel to those who didn’t go to college because they couldn’t afford it.
The banks will no longer give out loans for college education.
Only the rich will be able to go to school, since they will just pay out of pocket, and become doctors or lawyers or anything else that requires an expensive college degree.
Good news for those who are doctors now, they can then charge 1000$ a session and get it, since there will be so little doctors.
Everything. The U.S. is $30,000,000,000,000 in debt it cannot repay. This has led to unfettered money printing which, in turn, has led to runaway inflation. This ultimately leads to destabilization of a society.
If you ask the average U.S. citizen if they consider Israel an ally, they would say “No” and would not be able to even find Israel on a map. And if you ask the average U.S. citizen over age 30 if they feel more secure now than 30 years ago, they would say “No”. There has been no accountability for the foreign aid monies. If you can substantiate what meaningful objectives that aid has accomplished, please do so.
People can ignore reality, but, they cannot ignore the consequences of reality.
The average US citizen can’t find Washington DC on a map and doesn’t feel safer than 30 years ago. Therefore they don’t have to pay taxes to DC anymore?
I disagree with your analysis because it stems from an uneducated and and uninformed stance on the subject. The fact that “the average citizen might or might not think something” doesn’t make that something Into a national interest. You’d be surprised how much interaction goes on between Israel and Hamas and how much money and security Israel (quietly) provides to Hamas BECAUSE it IS a strategic interest for Israel to do so. If you ask almost EVERY Israeli “ would you consider Hamas an ally?” They would definitely say no! NEVERTHELESS, Israel on their end has to do what it does to keep a certain type of stability in the region. This goes not only for Hamas but also for thr PLO, Waqf, and other estranged groups. If you think that what you see on the news is what is actually true. You are in a very miserable place. If Israel wanted to topple Hamas they could have done so easily. Haniyeh and Sinwar are all under constant observation. Yet, Israel’s national interest is to keep these ppl where they are.
Pls don’t assume that America gives money to Israel due to its deep ties to the Zionistic vision or due to the notion that a Jewish state is integral to the Jewish nation – between you and I, America couldn’t care less about that. They abandoned the Jews in WW II and and I’m not sure things will be any different in a World War III. The reason America supports Israel is because Israel is providing something far greater then money can provide: Intelligence, technology, and development of an unprecedented QME that IS the ONLY deterrent for a nuclear Russia, Iran, North Korea etc… That is only a small fraction of what is really going on. There is a reason even the most liberal (anti Israel) of presidents still supported Israel. It’s about time for ppl to mature and stop seeing the works via a short sighted / myopic view. The world is a lot more real and dangerous then ppl think it is – I’m speaking from experience.
I was rather surprised by how negative the poll vote here was on this issue.
I think US foreign aid to a developed country like Israel should take a back seat to the financial interests of the US’s own indebted current and former students. But the US Government doesn’t really have any kind of present-day trade-off between giving financial aid to Israel and to giving Americans student debt relief. If the latter increasing leads to the former being reduced, no skin off my back.
Part of the negativity is that nothing was done systemically to fix the actual problems.
When we bailed out the airlines, we could have made it contingent on a consumer bill of rights. Instead we handed out free money and got nothing in return. Airlines are treating the consumers that bailed them out worse and less reliably than ever. And airlines gamed the system and managed to shed jobs that bailouts were supposed to have protected.
When we bailed out students, it could have done by working with universities to limit tuition costs and increases to help resolve future problems. Instead it’s being done with no strings attached, which will just cause schools to hike tuition even more, with students assuming that there will be future bailouts and not being averse to taking on more debt than they can possibly service with their degree.
Can he forgive credit card debt too?
Does your credit card identify as a student?
Literally paying for votes
The timing is not accidental. It doesn’t take a long time to decide this.
LOL
This thing is beyond stupid
People loose $500 in debt a month but inflation raises costs by $1000 a month.
Time to forgive everything. Rent. Mortgage. Car loan. Let’s not stop
It is a Shmita year
Every yeshivah is going to try to get their students to take out loans 🙂
Hahaha, so true lol
they are only forgiving past loans….NOT NEW ONES!
it is not retroactive (yet)
Unfortunately, supposed institutions of learning will game this. It doesn’t take much imagination to imaging that Trump and his Trump University would have loved to have gotten into the “run up the debt” game by using their “students”.
The $10k question is how will this be treated by IRS.. If borrowers have to pay tax on $10k forgiveness, as they would under current rules, all hell will break loose!
Of course this will be tax-free to the borrower
We got additional IRS agents for this.
Remember what happened to Unemployment? Feds made it tax free up to $10k, while New York State said, pay it as any other income!
Disapprove because every government spending program is unfair to everyone who didn’t consent to be taxed or inflated for it!
This is crazy.
The funding for this should come from clawing back that tuition from colleges that promised a degree that will pay for itself and then handed out diplomas for medieval art appreciation.
So true. Though, those colleges/universities should be abolished altogether.
Everyone complaining here probably has no problem with forgiving PPP loans. Don’t be a hypocrite. This will help many people afford to live. Don’t be selfish and ignorant to the government advantages you take part in.
When are they forgiving the EIDL Loans?
lol!!
@Berg22 I think you and can be friends.
Yep, at least in part our current inflation/recession is for the PPP and Stimulus that we all got. PPP was for the attention for business closed should continue paying there employees thru the pandemic, now the pandemic is over jobs are viable, sorry go work and pay your Student Loan as every one did until NOW.
How many here sent back or refused those covid checks? Hypocrisy is alive and well.
Biden screwed up with the PPP as well. Shouldn’t have given it in 2021. And anyways, all that PPP money is paying for inflationary goods. The PPP wasn’t about helping the people. Neither is this debt forgiveness. It’s about buying votes. Even some of Obamas economists are against it. So, feel free to feel good about yourself stealing my hard earned money (that I’ll be taxed on either with actual tax or inflation).
Decisions like this need to be taken in light of economics. There is almost no support from economists that this will help the economy. In fact, it is a bad thing in a highly inflationary year – that was caused in part by free hand outs like this one.
Also, even though it doesn’t make it right, just remember that undzerer shared equally in the PPP. Undzerer is not sharing equally in this grant. We are paying for it however so consider it another tax that we pay for everyone else. Vdai L’meivin.
If you were cool with all the haimish publications pumping PPP loans and how they were forgivable you should be cool with this action.
2 wrongs don’t make right
I don’t think either are wrong. I think both could have been done better.
But two wrights make an airplane
Does this apply to Graduate degree, such as Law School?
yes
The country investing in its people’s education and economic success is a no brainer. As much as a I cringe at excess federal spending, supporting education is the key to propelling and securing our country’s global dominance.
Playing devil’s advocate, but is forgiving past loans investing in education or are there more effective ways to do that?
We should do both. This should be a first step among many.
When people pay for their education they work/study more to get the money worth vs when just going for free. It’s a no brainer to understand this logic.
The easier it will be to pay for college the more expansive college will become, this is a gift for the colleges.
This has nothing to do with investing in education. These funds are owed for degrees already earned – many of them a LONG time ago. This is a simple vote grab using our hard-earned money. No one but me paid my loans down over the course of many years.
This is wrong and unforgivable.
PPP loans were wrong and fraud-ridden as well. Our country is not thinking straight and it’s going to cost us dearly.
My son lives in Cambridge MA. If you throw a rock (JUST A FIGURE OF SPEECH- DONT DO IT!) you will hit an unemployed PhD in a field like sociology, etc. The only real “education” they received is that they learned that they wasted ten years of the (prime years) of their lives. But if a stove or furnace breaks down in Cambridge, try getting a tradesperson to come out and fix it- you will wait days or even weeks. Something is very wrong with this model and it is even worse that the handyperson has to pay for the dead-end degree. If the universities are handing out dead-end degrees, make them pay for debt release!!!! Now a days, you just need a year of two to become an expert coder and you can make big bucks- you don’t need college for that- just certification.
Ah yes trades”person.” Please tell us how many women or pronoun idiots are fixing furnaces in Cambridge, MA.
Hahahaha…. I thought if I used “tradesman” (which was my original thought) I would get slammed for that. Can’t win for losing no more (that should have been a Yogi Berra saying if it isn’t ).
Several people have noted that college education is an “investment”. For some it is a great investment, for others it is a terrible investment because they are too immature etc. The model of pushing everyone to go to college after high school needs to be reconsidered. If you really want to invest in education, try to figure out who would be better off working (or going to the military) for several years and then going to college, who would be better off learning a trade, who would be better off getting certification in coding and who would really benefit from four years of brain washing …oops …. I mean college.
“No refund will be offered if you already paid back your student loan or if you don’t owe the full $10,000 or $20,000.” Can you clarify?
This is from the FAQs on Studentaid.gov. What does the “up to” in “up to $20,000” or “up to $10,000” mean?
Your relief is capped at the amount of your outstanding debt.
For example: If you are eligible for $20,000 in debt relief, but have a balance of $15,000 remaining, you will only receive $15,000 in relief.
Correct, you won’t get a refund if you borrowed $20K with a Pell Grant and paid back $10K already. You will have $10K forgiven and that’s all.
That they won’t give you more than what your debt actually is.
Suppose that in one of the measurement years a borrower made under $125k, but filed jointly and reported over $250k in joint income. Would such a borrower qualify, or did joint filing sink the borrower today?
I believe that would sink you as I don’t think you can modify from a joint filing to individual, but IANAL.
Can I still take out a loan and get it forgiven?
Nope, too late.
Well, may be worth the try in case Biden decides to run in ’24. According to this buy-the-vote method, the next round of forgiveness should come toward the end of summer 2024.
Lol sure, what kind of leader helps individuals rather than corporations? Let’s continue just bailing out corporations so that they can continue that trickle of $ and jobs down to the peasants.
Another great move by sleepy. LOL
Meanwhile, the world is progressively becoming a more dangerous place as this idiot admin is soft with Russia, Iran, China – you name it. This will have consequences.
The same admin that is bleeding Russia white on the cheap?
You’re right, Trump would have been so much harder on them. The guy that called the invasion of Ukraine by Putin “smart”, “savvy”, and “genius”. No admiration there at all.
Oh and he wanted to pull out of NATO, the very NATO that is actually Russia’s biggest threat and about the only thing keeping them at bay (although they proved their military is failing miserably even in Ukraine).
He would’ve rolled right over for his pal.
What if i am a current student and was careful to avoid student debt. Can I take out a loan now and have it forgiven?
Nope, too late.
That hasn’t been clarified yet Dan. The final forgiveness application and terms will be released by December 31. I would hope they prevent that but this is the government.
In the long run this will just drive up the price of college, and proliferate useless degrees because students will be willing to take on more debt for a degree with little expectation of profitability, expecting it to be forgiven in the future.
In the short term, this will drive up inflation, as this will just free up a bunch of money for people spend on stuff that’s already in short supply.
Overall this is fundamentally unfair to all people who are financially responsible, and pay back their debts, and will encourage less responsible behavior.
I can’t think of a worse waste of govt money than giving it to college grads who have the highest earning potential already, and in a tight labor market!
Also it’s not clear that the president can make an executive action to effectively spend money Congress didn’t allocate, so I fully expect a court challenge looming to this.
The CDC eviction moratorium was struck down – this smells very similar.
The technical term for anyone taking benefit of this is ‘a thief’.
Does this apply to MEFA also?
So glad I paid off all my kids student loans. Not.
Why bother to do the right thing anymore?
the ones comparing this to the PPP loans are inaccurate. Student loans were initiated not on the basis that they should be forgiven, PPP was. there is no comparison.
Which is why PPP is worse. People took the money as a free handout. This is actually helping people who are sinking because they were sold a bag of bad goods at the super life experienced age of 18.
At 4 years old you can choose your gender, but at 18 you can’t choose a good career????
About time. 10k is getting the headline, but capping the IBR at 5% of discretionary income is a hidden golden nugget, too.
It is unfortunate that the government has to bail out citizens with taxpayer money while the education institutions keep every last cent.
Do White People qualify?
it does not make up for the tax cut that ruined our country but it’s a start!!
What you talkin bout Tom?
Not if they are privilaged
Almost 80% are against. That’s a very high ratio and says a lot!
It does not say anything of substance. This is an anecdotal/unscientific poll at best. It includes only people who frequent this site.
Will it work for medical school loans
HOW DO I TAKE OUT A STUDENT LOAN ASAP TO USE FOR WHATEVER BEFORE THIS KICKS IN [This is what your here for Dan, not telling us news :)]?
Amazing how large the group here is of “if it doesn’t help ME, I don’t want the deal to exist”. This invests in the braintrust of the US. Most EVERY other country in developed world either gives free college, or PAYS people to get a higher education, but yet here people are pissed we forgive some loans, and call it buying votes. I don’t hear the same people complaining about HUGE deductions for private planes, loss carryforward purchases, or the DOD getting MORE money for their budget then they even ASKED for…but yet you help the poorer folk and its a crime.
But I paid back my student loans so F everyone else. /S
Any country that pays for higher education, requires the students to maintain a minimum grade point average. Our colleges are filled with people with little responsibility for anything .
Your comment shows why the debt forgiveness is stupid. Your degree didn’t give you an understanding of basic economics. This is for past debt. It will not stimulate the economy. It can potentially contribute to inflation. As it is for past debt, it does not contribute to the braintrust of Americans.
Also, the braintrust of Americans is in a pretty bad state.
But it teaches people it is ok not to pay your contractual debts, just like it is ok not to pay your rent or mortgage. Let’s Go Brandon,
The Democrats do it again. “Here’s free money, vote for me”.
and didnt the repulicans start the ppp stuff that gave republicans like Matt Gaetz 477k forgiven ppp money?
Guy in his late 20’s here – graduated with my undergrad a few years ago, has kids, and works in the public sector.
COVID has been hard. We’re cash-strapped and in the red. Student loans are a massive weight over my head, and I’ve been dreading the day when the repayment period starts. Having this debt relief is the huge for us, and will enable us to stay out of further debt.
I get a lot of ppl are upset, and wish they could have their debt from years back repaid.. please understand that so many of us recent graduates are struggling, trying hard in our jobs – but just not making it financially. This is the break that we’ve been waiting for, and I hope you can understand that. It’s not about politics for us, it’s about our families.
No. Your bad choices shouldn’t be paid for by other people. You CHOSE to take that loan. Now pay it back.
Got a master’s in my 20’s, now in my 30’s with a growing family and a job that isn’t increasing my wages to reflect current inflation. Money isn’t flowing the way I imagined it would have with the degree I have. True, I chose to take out that loan, but I also chose to pay it back, which I have been doing until Covid hit. Having my student loan debts forgiven will help me stay out of other debts i.e. personal, credit card.
You have to have the economic sense of a 1st grader to think this will cause colleges to lower tuitions. This will actually be an incentive for colleges to raise the tuition, and for people to take on higher debts. Why not, if the government will anyhow end up paying it?
And of course only forgiving the loans of those who haven’t yet paid them is extremely unfair. But it’s more than that. It will also encourage more people to not pay their loans, hoping their loans will be forgiven.
There are many things the government can do to make schools lower tuition costs. But this is not one of them
Essentially hurts all the people who tried to pay back their loans on time.
How will it ‘hurt’ these people?
Why is it called forgiveness? Its debt transfer. From Student to someone else…
the $125,000 is based on last 2021 income or will it be based on the 2022 (future)
My assumption is 2021.
To clarify because I’m confused, if I still owe $7,000 and earn less than $125k, will that be forgiven or it won’t because it’s under $10k?
It will be forgiven.
My assumption is that most posters here are from frum communities. Most ultra frum communities have very high percentage of its inhabitants collecting food stamps, welfare checks, on section 8 housing and are on Medicaid. If you calculate the cost of all those benefits paid out over the last 50 years, the numbers would be staggering. So not sure what the sudden outcry is all about.
I don’t know about the other folks, but I am not ultra-frum or even modern orthodox- more 1960’s orthodox with some “recent” chumrot tossed in for good measure. My mother was a public school teacher and she didn’t go on vacations or own a car to save money for my college degree. In fact, she took three buses to go to work in all types of horrible weather. I passed it forward and saved for my son’s education. Today, I feel like we are nothing more than three generations of suckers. But remember: provide perverse incentives and people will act accordingly.
I remember not long ago when Lufthansa also put us in a group as all of us representing one type of something.
That’s complete stereotyping. Can we have the calculations for the black community while you’re at it? Then we can really see what staggering means.
Yossi Gestetner, a co-founder of OJPAC, said, “taxpayers in New York spend on average in the range of $25,000 per public school student per year and only around $1,200 a year for private school students. This gap of $23,800 per student is $3.87 billion when multiplied by the 162,894 students in private Jewish schools. This savings is huge, especially since private school outcomes are generally more than substantially equivalent to public school outcomes.”
Any forgiveness should only come with massive overhauls to the system to prevent it from just happening all over again and probably worse next time.
yup
Remember when Dems added one paragraph to the Obamacare legislation, which put the government in control of all student loans? They promised it would bring down the cost of college tuition? How did that work out?
This is great. Education is an investment. I paid off my loans already so it hurts a little bit, but that’s just the selfish part of me feeling that rather than who I actually want to be as a person. The majority of people receiving this benefit deserve it.
This is unfair to the people that chose not to take on the debt. Unfair to those who paid it back already. The students CHOSE to take out the loans and presumably were planning to pay it back by earning a salary with the degree they took a loan for. That was a choice they made and why should the government get them out of debt now, (at the taxpayers expense).
They didn’t choose to. They had no option. Gun was to their head, more loans, or no job.
What does that mean? They chose to go to school and take out the loans. They didn’t have to. Could have learned a trade or something else.
It means they went to school and focused on something. Maybe it was to become a doctor, or a lawyer, or a teacher, etc. I have ZERO problem with people learning a trade, but even some of them (aircraft mechanic, for example) generally need schooling. And with how much schooling costs now, loans are the ONLY way they can afford to go, EVEN with state schools. I love how you think learning a trade is FREE. Sure, it may be cheaper, but its also not free.
I have no problem with someone taking loans to go to school, but they should have realized they need to pay back those loans and presumably would have a salary because of the profession they went to school for and should be able to pay back those loans. There should be a plan for this. This was a choice they made and why should the government (aka the taxpayer) foot the bill for their career? The student benefits from their college/career choice so they also need to pay their loans. That’s a choice they should have thought through at that time.
Student aid website has crashed… I guess everyone is taking out debt asap to get in on the “free” money
Do you know how they are doing income verification ? 2021 tax returns or 2020 tax returns ?
It appears to be either of 2020 or 2021, whichever is most helpful.
What if income was less than 120 in one of the years and over 120 in the other year. Do you think they would let you choose which year to use ?
Getting an education for six figure debt is the big issue, twenty something year old’s fresh out of college/grad school and can’t afford things for years. Meanwhile lending companies throw cash at you so you can worry about high interest rates later…Forgiveness isn’t a solution but it doesn’t hurt for many. Just because others have paid it off in the past isn’t a good reason not to give it now. There are tons of things we have paid for that others haven’t and vice versa, just due to timing. That doesn’t mean you should not correct mistakes. The defaulting of student loans is inevitable, these numbers only increase over time and have been doing so historically. If debt is forgiven and that’s all that is done it is quite useless, the cycle will repeat itself and nothing will get solved. It’s a good step if it’s part of a long term plan to offer people an education they can afford at a reasonable price.
I question why some of these institutions are able to generate tens of billions of dollars and leave the younger generations sinking in debt. Many of you that were for PPP and other programs, didn’t Harvard (who has over 50 Billion in revenue) take or try to take 8M from there?? I don’t see why that’s justified but forgiving the students micro-debt is supported.
When will this post to people’s accounts?
Does this apply to loans taken for a masters degree or only for a bachelors degree?
My kids went to college for 6 years just to play video games and get away from their parents. Now they live in the basement, order food delivery, play video games and drive for Grubhub when they need cash for food delivery.
I paid the loans off for them like a good parent but I keep getting kicked in the butt here. Go figure.
If you insist on being a sucker, it’s on you.
Time to kick them out and cut off their use of your credit cards.
LOL
I just came to say I have the 100th comment
All started with Woodrow Wilson
I called customer service and they said it’s a glitch and all orders will be cancelled
I started a graduate program in March 2022 and took out student loans ($6000 so far)- will that be forgiven if I am income eligible? And since I was preapproved for these loans, will it continue to be forgiven when they disperse the loans for the following semesters?
You’ll need to wait for more details to be published.
why do we need to pay taxes if they are just going to print money anyway?
Offer scholarships to deserving students
Should’ve been a disclaimer that you can only get the refund if you show proof that you’re keeping to a full time job since graduating.
While I think that this forgiveness will further incentivize colleges to increase tuition and other costs (Eg. Harvard sits on an endowment so large that it can double its enrollment and cut tuition down to $10,000 a year and stay solvent for at least half a century. They still charge huge tuitions, and increase that on a regular basis.), I will not personally turn down this gesture.
So in short, my position is too nuanced for this poll.
Same for many other schemes the government has. While I am opposed in principle to the Obamacare subsidies, I do not send the IRS a check back for the tax credits I receive.
For those of us who finished their degree years ago but still have federal graduate school student debt that can be forgiven, how does one find out or prove that they took out a PELL grant way back, call the BMG office?