President Joe Biden on Tuesday launched a promotional blitz for his new program that helps student loan borrowers repay their debt, just weeks before millions of Americans are set to receive a loan bill for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Biden administration is mobilizing to convince borrowers across the country to sign up for the new income-driven repayment program — dubbed the “SAVE plan” — which caps interest accrual and lowers the monthly payment amount for many borrowers.
“It’s the most affordable student loan plan ever,” Biden said in a video released by the White House on Tuesday, describing the program as a major reform to a student loan system “that hurt borrowers for much too long.”
“If you’re eligible for the SAVE Plan, sign up now so you can lower your monthly payments in advance of payments resuming this fall,” Biden said.
unpopular opinion: if you take out a loan, you should have to repay it in full - alternately, dont buy what you cant afford to.
As someone who has paid off my own students loans I gotta say I fully disagree. The system we have for paying for college is super predatory and creates incentives for all kinds of shitty, but still legal, behavior by colleges, loan companies, etc. School shouldn’t cost so damn much in the first place, it didn’t for our parents, it shouldn’t have for us, it damn well shouldn’t for our kids.
Yeah, and student loan forgiveness doesn’t change that at all, except possibly making it even worse by inflating future tuition costs.
You’re right, it isn’t sufficient to fix the problem but you can’t make it right without forgiveness for those stuck eternally with the bullshit loans they were coerced into.
It’s cart before the horse though. That shouldn’t be the priority.
Much easier to do though.
But then if we do that, all the middle income energy will evaporate. It will become the classic “fuck you, I got mine”. One time relief for millenials and nothing for zoomers?
In the whole time this has been part of the national discussion, I have literally - literally - never ONCE had a loan forgiveness supporter bring up systemic reform. Not even as an AFTERTHOUGHT. Y’all don’t care. You’re not about improving society. You just want your money.
I literally paid my debt. I’m not in this for money. They got my money. Does it fix all problems? No. Does it help the current massive buildup of debt that is clogging this generations ability to thrive economically? Absolutely. Do we need systemic solutions? For sure. Forgiveness of these loans is good even by itself.
I disagree. It’s a handout for a lucky few, and it’s making it worse for everyone else.
Now I’m not against the handout per se. Millenials were definitely shafted and deserve some recompense.
But systemic solutions should be paramount. Harness this anger to fix the problem for everyone.
I agree. Let’s start by clawing back all of the forgiven PPE loans that virtually zero people whined and bitched about.
Until then, I don’t want to hear anything about stupid unpopular opinions about student loans.
ah, you’re looking for an echo chamber then? lol nope. I’m here to rock the boat, pal.
I’m against student loan forgiveness, and I think this is a perfectly fair idea.
Fuck free government money to those who don’t need it. That includes the “small business owners” who scammed the fuck out of PPP loans as well as middle class people who benefited from their degree and can afford to pay it back.
Hey bud. College educated here. And that degree has done jack shit for me to get into the field of cloud computing. Just a weight I carry now because every cloud job tells me “oh you have the degree? That’s cool but that degree just means you know the basics. Get x y and z certs. Btw you have to pay for them yourself. And on top of that we want 3-5 years of experience in the field as well. So see you in 2030!”
Great. So you’ll get the certs and then you’ll be making 180k and you’ll be able to afford your loans.
Opinion that I don’t care about the popularity of: An educated populace improves the economy and college should be free.
there’s no real guarantee that higher education will lead to a net gain in the economy though - it might, but it’s not a 100% chance.
k-12 is already free, and a lot of people over the decades have been very productive with just that level of education - daresay they’ve contributed more to the economy - after all, anyone working is a net economic gain over no one working, regardless of their level of education.
Good luck getting a job paying much more than $15 an hour without a college degree. That’ll sure make a big economic gain.
This is a multi layered problem without an easy solution. At face value, there really isn’t anything wrong with your statement, but once you dive into student loans/college education/how public education made everyone believe the only path forward was college - maybe, just maybe something needs to be done.
Capping interest rates so that people can actually pay their debt down is not a bad thing. The root of the problem still needs to be tackled - college is too expensive and administration departments are too bloated - but when the government guarantees the loans, colleges just raise rates because they know students can get them. Schools are not teaching enough financial literacy to make sure kids understand the opportunity cost of what they are signing up for.
Saying this as a person lived at home and commuted to undergrad and for my master’s degree and paid my loan back.
I think this part is what everyone takes exception to. Especially in gen x, no one warned us that “Maybe college isn’t for you because you won’t want a payment that takes 15% of all of your income each month when you’re also trying to scrounge up enough money to buy a house”.
The message was more “you’re going to be begging groceries at Piggly Wiggly like your cousin Bert if you don’t get a degree in something”
Bert now has more in his 401k than I’m even close to. Feels like we’ve been bamboozled.
Not just gen x. Millennial here, and I remember college being pushed on us as an idea in middle school up to high school graduation as a “make or break” thing for our futures. You either go to college or you end up a deadbeat.
Bamboozled we definitely were.
Top end of Gen Z here (graduated HS in 2017) and it’s the same here. College was the only option presented. Everything else was an alternative to college, not a standalone thing and was also still extremely expensive.
I suppose then it’s a lesson on whom you should trust when you’re planning on making life-altering financial decisions. presumably the lesson was learned?
Let’s start with those huge PPP loans then.
PPP loans were provided to businesses so that their employees werent immediately fired wholesale - which is what would have happened to many businesses when the customer base dried up during lockdown/covid. businesses are a net gain to the economy - they provide economic stimulus. allowing businesses to fail would just start a collapse. PPP loans by the government worked to prevent that - rather well, in fact.
students eventually provide economic stimulus but are a net detriment until they are capable of adding back to the economy & that includes paying off their student loans.
and again, students are an economic sink until they’re able to contribute to the economy. conversely, a business will always contribute to the economy - even a failing business pays their employees (or doesnt and the DoL sues them, then pays the employees).
PPP loans were a stopgap measure to ensure that the economy didnt collapse when old people were dying in droves. literally all it was. PPP loans were forgiven because the national economy requires that businesses move money around - the “spice must flow”, if you will - and rightly so, because a business is useful, whereas students really arent.
You do realise that most people that have student loans controbute to the economy already because they work after studying for a short time?
Those people can often barely afford to live because the companies that got PPP loans do not pay them a living wage. Those people can’t afford buying things which in fact is the only the only way that an economy works.
Without consumption the economy crashes.
Additionally the PPP loans didn’t have any oversight. Many business owners used them to buy a new car, a Yacht or other luxuries.
Do you think it is fair to forgive loans for the rich but not the poor?
Schools shouldn’t over charge for classes. My university charged 3k for just two courses that were two days a week. School should be cheaper and jobs should pay more.
I wasn’t fortunate enough to have a college fund setup for me or be taught how to save at a very young age. I don’t have parents to put me through college since.
Also why did PPO loans get forgiven? Student loan forgiveness should take priority over that
that’s nonsense. higher education has a LOT of administrative overhead. the overwhelming vast majority of teachers/professors/etc expect to make a decent wage. tenure has some impact on that as well, but they sure as hell arent philanthropists - the overall academic experience would be drastically different if educational professionals were not adequately compensated for their work. there are many other factors at play as well but paying the teachers is a big one.
bottom line - education is expensive & will always remain so. accreditation from cheaper schools is all well and good but for many professions, where you graduated from is just as important as the act of obtaining a degree at all.
in regards to “jobs paying more” - a basic job is going to pay whatever is the lowest it can get away with. if it’s too low, no one will accept that job offering & the position will either remain unfilled or the business will offer a higher remuneration. if you lack marketable skills, you are perfectly able to apply for anything you’d like but the chance of you actually gaining that job is laughably low; however, to gain skills one must accrue them - by either working up the ladder, gaining skill via experience, or investment into higher education (which, should be noted doesnt really provide skills, so much as a skillset or framework that the skills can later be integrated into).
PPO has to do with health insurance. not sure what you’re referring to