07-03-2023, 10:15 AM
(07-03-2023, 09:49 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: I'm not against helping people, but this is not ok.
What about people with crushing personal loans, or crushing auto loans, or crushing credit card payments, or crushing mortgage payments?
I don't disagree with you that getting an education should be affordable and not put someone into extreme debt, but one time forgiveness for a select few with a select single loan type that will solve zero issues is not the way to do it. IMO it is pure 100% vote buying and Biden straight up scammed those people.
Some things in life are just expensive. Not everyone will be able to obtain those things. Prestigious colleges are expensive. Some people will be able to go and others won't. Maybe some of those colleges that are worth billions should be providing solutions, not the taxpayers.
I don't know what the answer is, but I am 100% certain what Biden is doing is not it.
I think we have a misunderstanding of what is going on. Biden isn't forgiving loans (yet, I think he is still trying). The link that I posted is some modifications to how those loans are paid back in order to make it easier on borrowers. Here is the information...
Quote:Specifically, the plan will:
- For undergraduate loans, cut in half the amount that borrowers have to pay each month from 10% to 5% of discretionary income.
- Raise the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary income and therefore is protected from repayment, guaranteeing that no borrower earning under 225% of the federal poverty level—about the annual equivalent of a $15 minimum wage for a single borrower—will have to make a monthly payment under this plan.
- Forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments, instead of 20 years, for borrowers with original loan balances of $12,000 or less. The Department estimates that this reform will allow nearly all community college borrowers to be debt-free within 10 years.
- Not charge borrowers with unpaid monthly interest, so that unlike other existing income-driven repayment plans, no borrower’s loan balance will grow as long as they make their monthly payments—even when that monthly payment is $0 because their income is low.
So, it is an income-driven-repayment plan. Basically, there is a threshold where if you make too little money, your payments are "paused". For those who can make payments, the minimum amount to pay has been reduced. The forgiveness window has been reduced from 20 years to 10 years (this window already existed, mind you - this type of "forgiveness" has been happening for as long as I can remember. Biden just reduced the time period).
That is why I believe that this should be a pretty popular reform. It is addressing some of the underlying issues instead of a forgiveness plan. I do think this is part of the answer, long-term.
