On HBO’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver talked about student loans and how President Biden has delivered more relief for student loan debt than any other president in history.
Oliver said:
I do have some good news because while the Supreme Court rejected Biden’s large $ 400 billion plan, to his credit he has managed to achieve other significant solutions by adjusting existing programs under his administration. He has forgiven almost 12 billion of debt for borrowers with disabilities and through changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program another 56 billion for nearly 800,000 borrowers. This is important for those who benefit from it.
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If you currently have student debt, it’s important to know that this administration is now implementing the save plan, a revised version of income-driven repayment which looks promising. It reduces eligibility requirements and ensures that for anyone who borrowed less than $12,000 their debts would be forgiven after 10 years of payments. You can visit this website to check if you qualify and how much it might save you. I’m not saying it's perfect; it will need to be properly administered, and remember there are still uncertainties, but in its first few months, the save plan has forgiven a total of $1.2 billion for 150,000 borrowers.
In fact, when you consider everything Biden’s Administration has accomplished, he has managed to alleviate 138 billion in student loans for 3.9 million people in just 3 years. That is more than any president in history. And I know we are only addressing surface-level solutions here. Even if we solved all the major issues with the existing approaches, that wouldn't eliminate the massive pile of debt that people owe. And even if we did eliminate that debt, it wouldn't address the core problem that the cost of college in this country is unreasonable.
Video:
Biden has been criticizing Republicans for their inconsistent opposition to forgiving student loan debt, and he continues to forgive billions in student loan debt.
President Biden’s commitment to forgiving student loan debt has been unprecedented, and if he doesn’t win reelection, it will all go away. Trump is already on record as opposing student loan relief, and some MAGAs have questioned whether or not Trump could reinstate forgiven debt. However, that would result in massive legal challenges that would take years to resolve.
Biden could accomplish even more in a second term, and he deserves credit for not giving up and providing relief for many of the nation’s student borrowers.
