On HBO’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver discussed student loans and how President Biden has given more student loan debt relief than any other president in history.
Oliver said:
I have some good news because, while the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s big $400 billion plan to his credit, he managed to get other significant fixes by tweaking existing programs under his administration. He has forgiven nearly $12 billion in debt for borrowers with disabilities and, through adjustments to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, another $56 billion for nearly 800,000 borrowers, which is significant for those who benefit.
…
Look, if you personally have student debt, it’s worth knowing that this administration is currently rolling out the Savings Plan, a retooled version of income-driven repayment that looks promising. It reduces eligibility requirements and guarantees that anyone who has borrowed less than $12,000 will have their debts erased after 10 years of payments. You can go to this site to see if you qualify and how much it could save you, and I’m not saying it’s perfect to begin with, it will need to be administered correctly and remember these [ __ ] are still involved, but in its first few months alone the safe plan has raised a total of $1.2 billion for 150,000 borrowers.
In fact, if you consider everything the Biden administration has done as a whole, it has managed to relieve 138 billion in student loans for 3.9 million people in just 3 years. That’s more than any president in history. And look, I know we’re talking about band-aid solutions here. Even if we got rid of all the problems with acreage that wouldn’t solve the huge pile of debt that people have and even if we got rid of that it wouldn’t solve The central problem is that the cost of college in this country is absurd.
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Video:
Biden has criticized Republicans for their hypocritical opposition to student loan forgiveness, and continues to forgive billions in student loan debt.
President Biden’s commitment to forgiving student loan debt has been historic, and if he doesn’t win reelection, it will all disappear. It is already known that Trump opposes student loan relief, and some MAGAs have questioned whether or not Trump might reinstate the forgiven debt. However, this would pose huge legal challenges that would take years to resolve.
Biden is capable of doing even more in a second term, and he deserves credit for not giving up and doing something for so many of the nation’s student borrowers.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a member of the White House press pool and a congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
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