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Savannah Britt owes about $27,000 on a loan she took out to attend college at Rutgers University, a debt she was hoping to reduce with President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness efforts.
Its payment is currently on hold while the courts resolve challenges to the loan waiver program. But as Biden’s weeks go by in office, he may soon face monthly payments of up to $250.
“With this new administration, the dream is over. It’s over,” said the 30-year-old Brit, who runs her own communications agency. To support me. She owes about $18,000, and she was in the process of getting it forgiven, but it’s on hold.”
President-elect Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have criticized Biden’s debt forgiveness efforts, and lawsuits from GOP-led states have blocked the plan for widespread debt cancellation. Trump has not said what he would do on loan forgiveness, leaving millions of borrowers facing uncertainty over their personal finances.
The economy was a key issue in the election, which helped Trump win. But for borrowers, concerns about their finances extend beyond inflation to also include their student loans, said Persis Yu, managing attorney at the Student Borrower Protection Center.
“A big part of what’s making life unaffordable for them is the burden of expenses that they can’t get out of,” Yu said.
Student loan cancellation was not a focus of the campaigns of Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris, who avoided the issue in their political programs. The issue came up only once in the presidential debate in September, when Trump attacked Harris and Biden for failing to follow through on his promise of a broader pardon. Trump called it a “complete disaster” that “disturbed young people.”
Biden promised a student loan cancellation program during his run for president. Since its inception, Biden’s loan forgiveness has faced sustained pushback from opponents, who said it benefited elites and came at the expense of people who didn’t repay their loans or go to college.
Biden’s first plan to cancel up to $20,000 for millions of people was blocked by the Supreme Court last year. A second, narrower plan has been blocked by a federal judge after Republican-led states filed a lawsuit. A separate policy to lower loan payments for struggling borrowers has been blocked by a judge, even after Republican-controlled states challenged it.
Overall, Biden’s efforts were relatively unpopular, even among people with student debt. According to a poll this spring by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, three in 10 American adults said they approved of the way Biden has addressed student loan debt. How has it been handled? Four out of 10 rejected. Others were neutral or didn’t know enough to say.
Project 2025, a blueprint for a hard-right turn in US government that aligns with some of Trump’s priorities, calls for the federal government to get out of the student loan business and eliminate repayment plans that existed before the Biden administration.
Even without directly addressing student loans, Trump has made promises that will affect them. He has promised to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, which manages the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio. It is unclear which entity would take over this responsibility if the department were abolished, which would require approval from Congress.
Yu said the Biden administration managed to cancel the student loans of about 5 million borrowers, even though the signature forgiveness effort was blocked. The administration did this by joining debt cancellation programs already in effect. For example, the existing student loan forgiveness program for public service workers has provided relief to more than 1 million Americans, just over 7,000 who were approved before it was updated by the Biden administration two years ago.
“We’ve seen a lot of cancellations over the past few years because the Biden administration was committed to building out programs that are actually enshrined in law,” Yu said.
Sabrina Callazans, 27, owes nearly $30,000 in federal student loans from her college days at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania. Her payments are also on hold, but she could soon face monthly payments of more than $300.
“As a first-generation American, I live at home with my family, I contribute to our household finances, and that paycheck means a lot to me and many others like me,” said Callazans, who originally From Brazil, said.
In her role as managing director of the Student Loan Crisis Center, Calazons said she tells people to stay updated about developments by using the loan simulator on the federal student aid website and reading updated information on forgiveness eligibility and repayment programs. Has been.
“There is a lot of confusion about student loans,” Callazan said, and not just among young people. “We are seeing many parents taking on more loans to enable their children to go to school. We are seeing older people going back to school and having to take out loans as well.”
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