Some Americans will get their student loans canceled in February as Biden accelerates his new plan

[comana]

Joe is trying to buy votes, Joe's approval ratings are dismal. Rather than deal with major problems he is focusing on rewarding potential voters. By the way, it sounds like it doesn't matter how many payments have been missed or payments reduced, the borrowers will not have to pay any of that back. That will encourage them to borrow more if they wish, funded by the rest of us.

This is a major problem.

 

[Tuur]

These are adults, true, but very young adults, teenagers even, when they start taking out these loans.

If they're too young to get loans, are they also too young to vote?

 

[Tuur]

Something I may have missed in the posts is that the USSC has already told Biden "You can't do that."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-decide-fate-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-2023-06-30/

 

[comana]

If they're too young to get loans, are they also too young to vote?

I would argue for raising the age of majority, no problem. Most 18 year olds could use a little more parental supervision.

 

[Tuur]

I would argue for raising the age of majority, no problem. Most 18 year olds could use a little more parental supervision.

Or a dose of reality. The question of how I was going to pay for a loan was the reason I never got one at that age.

 

[Pommer]

Something I may have missed in the posts is that the USSC has already told Biden "You can't do that."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-decide-fate-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-2023-06-30/

Are the present actions (to forgive student loans) in accordance with the ruling SCOTUS handed down?

I’m going to guess that they are, since this is how politics works.
Oh it may get taken to court and Biden could “lose again” but the attempt will “look good” to millions who still owe big time.

 

[Tuur]

Oh it may get taken to court and Biden could “lose again” but the attempt will “look good” to millions who still owe big time.

That has been SOP long before Biden. Not for student loans, but for various issues in general. Politician advances an untenable order or bill, even of something they oppose, something that they know won't survive judicial scrutiny, and when struck down in court, goes, "Well, I tried."

 

[Pommer]

That has been SOP long before Biden. Not for student loans, but for various issues in general. Politician advances an untenable order or bill, even of something they oppose, something that they know won't survive judicial scrutiny, and when struck down in court, goes, "Well, I tried."

Right. “Politics”.
Normal.

 

[Green Sun]

Joe is trying to buy votes, Joe's approval ratings are dismal. Rather than deal with major problems he is focusing on rewarding potential voters. By the way, it sounds like it doesn't matter how many payments have been missed or payments reduced, the borrowers will not have to pay any of that back. That will encourage them to borrow more if they wish, funded by the rest of us.

You are incorrect - Payments do matter, and you would know this if you looked over the repayment plan documentation. Or if you read the subject article for this thread.

Borrowers will receive forgiveness of any remaining balance they still have after making enough payments (or payment equivalents) to reach what’s called their “repayment term.” A repayment term is the amount of time you need to have spent in repayment before you can qualify for this forgiveness, and it will increase based on how much money you originally borrowed. Once you’ve made the equivalent number of payments equal to your repayment term, you’ll become eligible for this early forgiveness.

For these forgiveness programs, when they say "10 years of payments", it refers to 120 qualifying monthly payments. So you have to make 120 payments to qualify in the first place. The sole exception to my knowledge is that, during the COVID Freeze started by Trump, every month that passed counted as a qualifying payment automatically, regardless of if there was any payment or not.

But the "buying votes" thing is always such a funny line of argument to me.

If a politician brought forward a program that benefited you, and you liked it, would you argue that they were "buying" your vote? Would you get mad about it?

But since it's someone else benefiting, now it's just a political move, even when the need is genuine.

Something I may have missed in the posts is that the USSC has already told Biden "You can't do that."

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-decide-fate-biden-student-loan-forgiveness-2023-06-30/

That ruling was specifically about the HEROS act, which was the framework that the previous forgiveness was attempted under:

Biden v. Nebraska

Questions presented
(1) Whether respondents have Article III standing; and
(2) Whether the student loan forgiveness plan exceeds the Secretary of Education's statutory authority or is arbitrary and capricious.

Holding
1. At least Missouri has standing to challenge the Secretary’s program.
2. The HEROES Act allows the Secretary to "waive or modify" existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, but does not allow the Secretary to rewrite that statute to the extent of canceling $430 billion of student loan principal.

The HEROS act forgiveness would have been applied to all currently open student loans, for anyone that made under $125,000 per year, with a forgiveness amount of 10,000 per person, raised to 20,000 if they were a Pell Grant recipient (due to Pell Grants being issued to people with a high financial need due to family financial hardships.)

This is not the same mechanism that the article's forgiveness is based on.

It is built into the SAVE plan itself. Similar to the Income Driven Repayment (IDR) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) plans, to prevent a loan from lasting into perpetuity, after 10 years of payments (which is 120 qualifying monthly payments), the remaining balance is discarded.

Student loan borrowers are allowed to transfer their loan from their previous repayment plan onto the SAVE plan, getting new monthly payment amounts as part of this, and the plan is meant to help who make less money meet their monthly payments. It is also designed to ensure that the principal can't outpace the rate of repayment, so we don't end up in situations where the interest outpaces the amount you're paying per month, resulting in being underwater on the loan.

As the final stopgap there, similar to the previous IDR plans, after enough qualifying monthly payments, the remaining balance is forgiven.

The people who are getting forgiven here already made 120 monthly payments on their loan before transferring over to SAVE. The previous payments aren't just dropped into a hole - Prior payments have always counted for IDR forgiveness. This is the Department of Education simply proceeding with something they already announced and codified with their repayment plans.

As far as I can tell with case law, SCOTUS has not told the DoE "You cannot include a time-based forgiveness in your repayment plans". They've had plenty of time for a case to be brought up on this issue - This sort of forgiveness has been part of the Federal Direct Student Loan Program since the Income-Contingent Repayment Plan was started in 1994.

 

[Mayzoo]

Taxing one group and spending it on another is how government finances work. He absolutely has that right. If he didn't, the government wouldn't be able to do much of anything.

It is the foundation of Medicare and Social Security. This generation pays for the last generation and it has been this way since it advent.

 

[Mayzoo]

Here is the deal when you take out a loan you are expected to pay it back it is that simple. Now, if you are dealing with basically "private money" meaning a PERSON loans you the money then they may forgive it if they so choose, HOWEVER the government does not have its own money and thus cannot just "forgive" debt. You took it out be a grown person and pay it back. What do those same people suppose will happen if they take out a loan for a car fail to pay it back well you lose your car same goes for if you take out a loan for a house and cannot come up with the money you lose your house (how quickly that can legally happen depends on the state). and then have awful credit that make buying or even renting again VERY hard for a number of years. It is not that hard you take out a LOAN you pay it back

They should not have taken out the loans. BUT they did. Now we as a society have to deal with it. This is no different than people declaring personal and corporate bankruptcy due to poor decisions all the time. We bail them out too. Others get help in different ways for their poor decisions. Failure to properly plan for retirement comes to mind.

Some of the time, life happens and they cannot pay back loans or plan for the future due to situations outside their control completely (life-altering accidents, illnesses etc...).

I never took out a loan or declared bankruptcy, but I believe in the need to step up and help my fellow citizens. This is a Christian tenet. Helping those in need, who are trying to help themselves, without regard to if their need was of their own doing or not. We should even help those who beyond the ability help themselves.

 

[markkeller]

They should not have taken out the loans. BUT they did. Now we as a society have to deal with it. This is no different than people declaring personal and corporate bankruptcy due to poor decisions all the time. We bail them out too. Others get help in different ways for their poor decisions. Failure to properly plan for retirement comes to mind.

Some of the time, life happens and they cannot pay back loans or plan for the future due to situations outside their control completely (life-altering accidents, illnesses etc...).

I never took out a loan or declared bankruptcy, but I believe in the need to step up and help my fellow citizens. This is a Christian tenet. Helping those in need, who are trying to help themselves, without regard to if their need was of their own doing or not. We should even help those who beyond the ability help themselves.
And I don't want and won't blame those who took a loan and can't pay it off. Education is expensive, and if you can't get a scholarship, you need to pay. And if there is no one to help, and you don't have enough money, then what else can a person do?
I didn't take a loan because I had a family who helped me a lot. And without them, I have no idea what I would have done. And now I do my best to show that I'm worth all those sacrifices. It's not always easy because being a student is hard. I face problems, especially with writing, but I do my best to improve. The last time this page https://edubirdie.com/examples/narrative-essays/ helped me out a lot because I was stuck with such a paper, and those examples helped me a lot with ideas. And having such examples is beneficial because it makes the whole process faster. But I do my best to improve those skills.

I agree with you. Sometimes students take loans without any idea how hard it is to pay them back. And yes, there also can be different situations in life, that you can't predict or avoid, and it can make paying out the loan impossible.