Last week, the first batches of emails started being sent on behalf of President Biden. The recipients of these letters will have their student loans “canceled” by action from President Biden. Totaling over $1.3 billion across more than 153k accounts, Biden targeted members of the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plans.
The letter says, “Congratulations—all or a portion of your federal student loans will be forgiven because you qualify for early loan forgiveness under my Administration’s SAVE Plan. From day one of my Administration, I vowed to fix student loan programs so higher education can be a ticket to the middle class—not a barrier to opportunity.” Biden also said he hoped, “this relief gives you a little more breathing room.”
A statement from the White House outlined that the SAVE plan members who will be seeing relief took out less than $12k in loans and have been paying on them for 10 years were the recipients of these letters. They are the first ones in this classification of loan forgiveness, too.
While reassigning this debt to the American taxpayer should certainly be illegal, so should the rates these loans are charging. Coming down on Americans as medical debt does, these loans are incredibly predatory. As many kids are too poor to afford school without them and too ill-informed to know what they are signing up for, they find themselves stuck later down the line. It also serves as a stark reminder of why apprenticing in the trades is such a powerful route for people to take instead.
Buying votes through “forgiving” or “canceling” student loans is a low-down and dirty tactic. A tactic the American people should not abide by or accept happening so freely. If we want to build the nation back up, eliminating these kinds of programs needs to be a first step.
