Do you have student loan debt?
Don’t worry about it. That is if you work in public service.
No Student Loan Debt For Public Workers
From Reuters, “U.S. President Joe Biden announced Thursday that $6 billion in student loans would be canceled for 78,000 borrowers, bringing his administration’s total student debt cancellation to nearly $150 billion.”
“Biden, a Democrat, last year pledged to find other avenues for tackling debt relief after the Supreme Court in June blocked his broader plan to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt,” Reuters noted.
The story continued:
The latest group includes public service workers, like teachers, nurses and firefighters, who qualify under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program created in 2007 to forgive student debt for Americans who go into public service.
“These public service workers have dedicated their careers to serving their communities, but because of past administrative failures, never got the relief they were entitled to under the law,” Biden said in a statement.
As of June 2023, about 43.4 million U.S. student loan recipients had $1.63 trillion in outstanding loans, according to the Federal Student Aid website. Higher education debt has tripled since the 2008 financial crisis.
Steep interest and hefty payments on these loans mean younger Americans struggle to buy homes or make other investments, and Democrats have pushed for U.S. government forgiveness for years. Republicans largely oppose such actions.
Is It A Political Ploy?
Don’t think for one second that Biden’s prospects for the election in November don’t play a role in this.
He needs the youth vote, for one.
“I won’t back down from using every tool at my disposal to deliver student debt relief to more Americans, and build an economy from the middle out and bottom up,” Biden said.
Polls continue to show that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is ahead of Biden. This should be particularly concerning for the Biden campaign in the swing states, where the president is currently losing.
Don’t be surprised if Joe Biden forgives even more student loan debt between now and November.
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