• the post of tom joad
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    8 months ago

    Ok, so if you want to know why leftover leftists like me are complaining bidens not doing enough to get reelected Even though he’s forgiven 153 billion in debt, i wanna talk just a bit about the ridiculous scale of student debt.

    Total student debt in the US is 1.77 Trillion dollars. 92% of that debt is federal student loan debt. Not private corps that’s would have to take a hit (that’s the 8%), federal loans. Now Biden has provided some access to loan relief (with means testing of course, a commenter here can’t even get the money but i digress) to the time of 153 billion usd all told. That might sound like a lot as those numbers are more than we can naturally conceive (anyway i can’t) but subtract 153 billion from 1.77 trillion and you get… 1.616 Trillion.

    That… objectively is not much.

    • Jerkface@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I wonder what it is that you imagine has to happen to get the other 1.616 T cancelled.

    • MisterD@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      He did try to wipe it all out but the Republicans stopped him. Just be happy he’s able to wipe a few billion here and there. Meanwhile Mr. 91 indictments only help those with money.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Its a fucking huge amount of forgiveness, and has been life changing for millions of Americans.

      But besides wiping debt outright, they also made tons of changes to the loan repayment system. How about doubling the minimum income before you have to pay anything on your loan from 16k to 32k? How about freezing any interest if you are paying on your loan? How about letting anyone delinquent true up instantly just by enrolling? How about letting spouses who are married but file separately maintain income based based payment even if the household income is to high? How about actually forgoving loans after the 10 years in the public service program, instead of “just not doing it” for 4 years like the trump admin did? How about forgiving 1k/yr of loans after 10 years even if you dont qualify for the public service forgiveness program? What about forgiving any undergrad loan after 20 years of payments, no matter the amount paid, that takes into account past payments?

      They have made paying back the loans much, much less painful for the people that haven’t had their loans outright forgiven, often dropping payment amounts by half and making everything about the process less brutal.

      That is indeed, “objectively much.”