Biden forgives Student Loans - right or wrong?

Van started a conversation no else was prepared to start. That said thus is nothing more than A desperate attempt to win votes for the midterm election by minimalist Joe. The cancellation applies only to loan debt held by the federal government through the Department of Education and not any privately held debt.

It was one of the things he campaigned on. What’s wrong with fulfilling a campaign promise?

I don’t think the Federal Gov’t has the power to cancel debt owed to private holders

Cant cancel private debt?? Feel free to pencil into that argument the $2.2 trillion dollar CARES Act stimulus handed to corporations and banks in March of 2020.

Kind of “apples to oranges”, but okay.

Yeah, no…
The gov’t didn’t cancel debt owed to banks.
You state it right in your “argument”

Biden just cannot do it right, right?

President Biden Announces American Rescue Plan

JANUARY 20, 2021•LEGISLATION

Emergency Legislative Package to Fund Vaccinations, Provide Immediate, Direct Relief to Families Bearing the Brunt of the COVID-19 Crisis, and Support Struggling Communities

The COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding economic crisis are devastating families across the country. More than 20 million Americans have contracted COVID-19, and at least 370,000 have died. From big cities to small towns, too many Americans are barely scraping by, or not scraping by at all. And the pandemic has shined a light on the persistence of racial injustice in our healthcare system and our economy. T

The need to act is clear in the lines at food banks, the small businesses that are closed or closing, and the growing number of Americans experiencing housing insecurity. After nearly a year of the public health crisis, our nation remains in this dark winter of the pandemic and facing a deep economic crisis.

President Biden is laying out the first step of an aggressive, two-step plan for rescue, from the depths of this crisis, and recovery, by investing in America, creating millions of additional good-paying jobs, combatting the climate crisis, advancing racial equity, and building back better than before.
President Biden Announces American Rescue Plan | The White House

I just cannot believe the depth of this scapegoating Biden, who is actually trying to salvage the Nation from a disaster that has already taken more than a million lives in the US alone.

Every effort Biden has made to mitigate the economic disaster caused by COVID has met with the most vile opposition from the Trumpites, who really are the “basket of despicables” that Hillary Clinton spoke of and Trump embraced with “there are good Nazis too”.

Much of the Democratic Party congressional leadership were pushing for a much larger cancellation, closer to $50,000 per student as a populist stance before the mid terms but right wing sections of the democrat party are furious with the 10,000 debt relief , including Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado and Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan.

Meanwhile the government has raised the interest on current student loans in keeping with the rate rises set by the Federal Reserve, most recently (in July) from 3.7 percent to 5 percent. This means that current and future students will accumulate debt even faster than the previous generation of borrowers.

It really doesn’t matter, because it won’t cancel out the debt, at least not entirely. Interest will still accumulate on the balance people owe even after the $10,000 is take off the debt. So, the greedy corporations of loan sharks will still get their money and people will still be in debt with student loans.

I believe the intent is to offer temporary relief in this time of international turmoil.

So far the only class that has benefitted from economic disaster are the rich.
Remember the billion dollar bailout (no strings attached) during the market crash of 2007

  • The Great Recession, one of the worst economic declines in US history, officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009.
  • The collapse of the housing market — fueled by low interest rates, easy credit, insufficient regulation, and toxic subprime mortgages — led to the economic crisis.
  • The Great Recession’s legacy includes new financial regulations and an activist Fed.
    Causes of the Great Recession: Factors, Effects, and Legacy

If I recall CEOs were rewarded with million dollar bonuses for “a job well done”.

Really? So you’re saying everyone should aspire to blue collar jobs, and that’s it? Sorry buddy, if you want something more than that (and there’s nothing wrong with blue collar) then you have to go to college. Nowadays most corporations won’t even look at a resume if it doesn’t have a college degree. So no, it IS required.

And this notion of “forgiven” is BS too. As if the borrowers committed a sin by wanting more than being a garbage man. What about all the nurses who want to help others? What about doctors? So they had to pay through the nose to what? Help their fellow citizens? That’s utter BS. Can you imagine if soldiers had to pay for basic training? How is “defending you country” any different from the nurse who’s directly helping citizens?

No Bernie is exactly right - if you think students should pay for college, then you don’t believe in education, and you certainly don’t believe in helping others. College should be free, period. That it’s not is just a sign of how rampant the disease of capitalism is in the US and elsewhere.

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In France, a student pay for tuition, for insurance, for sports and for some accessories, a maximum of 1 000 $ a year, in a state university, and there are scholarships.

Engineering and business schools are more expensive.

Private business schools can be very expensive.

They pay high taxes over there & these taxes help pay for the education
The US is a pure capitalist country - you are on your own here
Even within the US we can see the difference - I live in Chicago, part of a liberal state, and here I can do without a car(sometimes when it gets really bad in the winter, I want to give in) because the public transportation is adequate
But If I move to Dallas, Con country, sorry I am on my own!

But of course there are exceptions, here we help Billionaires build expensive stadiums because they really need the help

I am a bit snake bitten - Can I ask if you are a moderator?
If you are I don’t think it is a good idea for me to reply to you
If you get upset by my answers, you can ban or suspend me
If I get upset by your answers, all I can do is walk away
it is not a fair fight

Why are we focusing on these loans? How about other loans? Mortgage for example - don’t their rates go up as well? Where is the relief for them?
The ones I keep going back to are the Health care costs. I landed in a hospital recently - stayed just one day - the total bill was 10,000! It was good that I work for a big company that took care most of the bill
Imagine someone going into debt over such a bill - an expensive surgery perhaps
Where is the relief for them?
And that is part of the reason why the cap is at 10K

Van no he is not but reading through the threads it looks like mriana and lausten are. I would advice limiting your conversations with them as it appears they dont take kindly with difference of opinion and understanding of why things happen and why they matter.

Guess I should have went to college in France. In a State Uni in the U.S. (Missouri in particular) it was roughly, when I attended back in the late 90s and early 2000s, $10,000/year and it’s gone up a lot since then. No college/Uni in the the U.S. has been a $1000/year for probably a century or more.

OK These are the fees for students now, which don’t look much different: Undergraduate Tuition, Costs and Fees - Tuition, Costs and Fees - Missouri State

I was a non-traditional student, who lived off campus, so you can subtract the housing, because I lived off campus with my sons. I still had rent to pay, but the tuition per year was $10,000/year without the housing. I also took 12 credit hours/semester, not 14, back then, as well as raised my sons and worked.

Blockquote Typical basic costs

The following table provides typical basic costs for an undergraduate student living on campus, both for a semester (14 hours) and for an academic year (fall and spring semesters combined, 28 hours). This chart is based on 2022-23 tuition and fees.

Missouri resident
14 credit hours
(one semester) Missouri resident
28 credit hours
(fall and spring semesters) Non-Missouri resident
14 credit hours
(one semester) Non-Missouri resident
28 credit hours
(fall and spring semesters)
Tuition and fees* $4,302 $8,604 $4,302 $8,604
Out-of-state tuition $0 $0 $4,270** $8,540**
Housing and meals (average)*** $4,718 $9,436 $4,718 $9,436
Books and supplies**** $600 $1,200 $600 $1,200
Total $9,620 $19,240 $13,890 $27,780

  • Costs shown are based on 14 credit hours per semester using the basic tuition of $267 per credit hour for Missouri residents ($572 for nonresidents) and include student services fees ($564 per semester for full-time students). Some programs charge additional fees for their courses and some courses have supplemental fees.

OK so the chart doesn’t copy and paste well, but anyone can see what I’m referring to for undergrads. No Grad studies are more.

https://www.missouristate.edu/Costs/graduate-costs.htm

International students pay even more: International Costs - International Services - International Programs - Missouri State

This is just at one State Uni in the U.S. I’m sure I can pull up State Universities and they’d be more or less, but it’s just one example. Now Harvard and the other Ivy League schools is where the really big tuitions are.

Here’s Harvard: Tuition and Fees | FAS Registrar's Office It’s a BIG difference. Another page of Harvard’s tuition: Tuition and Costs | Harvard Graduate School of Education

No, he is not a mod. Lausten and I are. As a mod, I see nothing wrong with cuthbertj’s participation. That said, even if a mod gets upset with a post we can’t just suspend or ban a member for it. There is a process, as well as a set of rules, found in the FAQs section that everyone must abide by and cuthbertj hasn’t violated any of the rules- at least not in the post you are replying to.

As with all Democratic legislation and initiatives it promises more than it will ever deliver. As some one who went back to school in mid life (mostly because I wanted a change from my career) I managed to incur a sizeable debt from tuition and, upon graduation, very few employment prospects (I ended up staying with my then place of employment). As I look at my current situation regarding my student loan it will be forgiven at the time of my death. Assuming the laws are not changed.

Differences of opinion are the life blood of this forum. There wouldn’t be much reason for it if everyone thought the same. The way those differences are expressed and discussed is what I hope sets this forum apart from a non-moderated one. There are rules here. One of the most important is

6. Users may express their disagreements with the decisions or actions of Moderators, but disagreements, criticisms and the like may be discussed in the Issues & Complaints category ONLY.

This rule keeps all the threads from being disrupted by discussions of how we discuss.

Also, welcome back @vanamali.

Yes I will take it up in the complaint category what you did to me
To me, a moderator is like a referee - he is supposed to be unbiased, stay away from the players
But once the gets involved, starts playing for one side, he can no longer be a referee - he can no longer in good faith call a foul on the other team
You took a side - you made your views known which side you were on & from that point you were not longer a moderator, you were a participant and hence should not have the power to take out your anger on another participant