President Joe Biden Plans to Forgive Student Loans

White House representatives announced debt relief for middle-class student loan borrowers on Aug. 24, which received major support, as well as backlash. 

With President Biden’s plan, the Department of Education will cancel up to $10,000 for qualifying borrowers who make less than $125,000 a year as an individual, or $250,000 as a married couple. Recipients of the federal Pell Grant, which is awarded to low-income students based on FAFSA, are eligible for up to $20,000 of debt forgiveness.  

The news was met with some immediate backlash, from both the Republican and Democratic parties. The main arguments include that debt forgiveness is not fair for those who did not take out student loans, have already paid their student loans, and did not attend post-high school education. Lawmaker GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the individuals, who believes the plan is “not fair.”  

“Taxpayers all over the country, taxpayers that never took out a student loan, taxpayers that pay their bills and maybe even never went to college and are just hardworking people, they shouldn’t have to pay off the great big student loan debt for some college student that piled up massive debt going to some Ivy League school,” she said on NewsMax.  

However, this is not the first time that the government has given money out to citizens. In 2019, former President Donald Trump gave $16 billion to farmers affected by the trade wars, and during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government established the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to help businesses through loans that have been forgiven in 2021. Even Greene has had $183,000 in loans forgiven through the PPP.  

In spite of backlash, there have been waves of support for Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. Not only does the plan impact 43 million borrowers, but it also has the potential to help people of color, especially Black borrowers, who, on average, take out more loans for higher education and take longer to pay it back compared to White borrowers, according to NPR. 

St. Lawrence student Isabelle Raza ‘24 also supports the new plan. “Despite the few voices that say Biden’s loan forgiveness is unfair, the reality is everyone would have also wanted to pay their student debt if they could, no one desires to be in debt. I think, this bill is seen as a miracle to the rest who were not as fortunate after schooling to be able to pay them off given whatever circumstances they found themselves in,” she says.   

In addition to the student loan forgiveness, it should also be important to note, although individuals have not been required to make payments on student loans since March 2020, it was announced that payments will resume in Jan. 2023.