President Biden Makes Big Changes for Student Loan Borrowers
Since taking office, President Joe Biden has already been making some big changes. Over the past eight months, Biden has been focusing on student loan cancellation for hundreds of thousands of student loan borrowers. Following the order for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Biden has recently canceled nearly $70 billion of student loans. As of now, more than $1.5 billion loans have been canceled this way and $5.8 billion more for student loan borrowers.
Though those numbers are far from small, student loan debt statistics show that there are more than 45 million student loan borrowers with a growing total of $1.7 trillion collectively owed. Many student loan borrowers who haven’t gotten their student loans canceled are still wondering when their respective loans will get canceled.
me laughing at joe biden jokes so he can cancel my student loans
— 🎈 (@chibarbi) August 27, 2021
pic.twitter.com/JC0XRCG4OO
Most student loan borrowers are either asking for total loan cancellation, including private and federal student loan debts, or they’re showing support for a proposal that would use executive order to have Biden cancel up to $50,000 per student loan borrower. As a result, an estimated 36 million student loan borrowers would have their federal loans completely canceled.
While Biden supports $10,000 of forgiveness for every student loan borrower, he doesn’t believe he has the legal authority to cancel loans for all borrowers without the proper authorization from Congress. He believes they should be the power that acts to pass student loan forgiveness and that succeeding the motion, he would be willing to sign the student loan legislation.
Biden has canceled over $9 billion in student loan debt https://t.co/mWvqOEgu7c pic.twitter.com/oZghjQozfl
— The Hill (@thehill) August 31, 2021
Despite this, student loan cancellation has become one of Capitol Hill’s major focuses, and Biden has placed a wide-scale student loan cancellation in motion. Congress passed the bipartisan Cares Act, enacting the $2.2 trillion stimuli in March 2020 and granting student loan relief with no collection of student loan debt in default, no new student loan interest, and no mandatory federal student loan payments. Although this relief is temporary, Congress has effectively turned student loan relief into student loan cancelation.
Some are still debating whether it can be said that Biden canceled $70 billion worth of student loans. Still, it remains a fact that Biden has canceled more student loan debt than any president, and he only continues to increase numbers throughout his administration. Although it remains unlikely that there will be a wide-scale cancelation of everyone’s student loan debt, it’s not a long-shot to believe that Biden will do his best to ensure that student loan borrowers get some form of relief.
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