If You Owe Student Loans Be Glad For The Reprieve And Shut Up…

A gen­er­al rule of thumb is that if Democrats announce a pro­gram to ben­e­fit the poor­er class, Republicans will be against it with­out fail.
In a White House release, the Biden Administration announced what it is doing about the bur­den­some stu­dent loan debt affect­ing tens of mil­lions of Americans..
Republicans pass tax cuts for the rich and the very rich when they hold the reins of pow­er. Democrats, on the oth­er hand, do their lev­el best to attend to the needs of the poor­est Americans.
One of the most con­found­ing things to under­stand is that poor white Americans — - and even those in the mid­dle class who vote Republican regard­less of their poli­cies tout that their par­ty pass­es tax cuts for the super-rich. None of this ben­e­fits any­one except the super-rich and their polit­i­cal tools in congress.

Though this may seem hard to wrap the mind around, it is not that hard to fig­ure out. During the 246 years of estab­lished enslave­ment of African peo­ple in the United States, poor and pover­ty-strick­en whites were indoc­tri­nat­ed into believ­ing they were genet­i­cal­ly and intel­lec­tu­al­ly supe­ri­or to the Black enslaved peo­ple work­ing under tor­rid con­di­tions for free.
The idea was to divide the poor white pop­u­la­tion from the bur­geon­ing black enslaved peo­ple using race as a line of demar­ca­tion. The planter class saw a real prob­lem devel­op­ing if the enslaved black pop­u­la­tion and the poor whites found com­mon cause in their dis­ad­van­taged status.
Divide and con­quer was born.
At the risk of sound­ing like a scratched record, poor white peo­ple have been duped into think­ing that they will be like the rich and pow­er­ful. That their time is just around the cor­ner. That if they only work hard and play by the rules. That gov­ern­ment is not sup­posed to work for them because gov­ern­ment is the problem.
These lies have been enforced and rein­forced into their psy­ches from the union’s ear­ly days to the present.
It is exact­ly why the poor­est white peo­ple vote Republican and live in the poor­est states. Is there any won­der that they would be the most closed-mind­ed, least intel­lec­tu­al, and most racist, xeno­pho­bic, and Islamaphobic?

Even as poor whites were con­di­tioned to believe their wealth was just around the cor­ner, enslaved Blacks were con­di­tioned to embrace a pie-in-the-sky ver­sion of Christianity that guar­an­teed streets of gold, milk, and hon­ey when they died if they remained sub­servient to their masters[sic].
The irony in that ide­ol­o­gy is that Blacks already had the gold, enough to pave streets. While they were work­ing as enslaved ani­mals, whites were busy steal­ing all of the gold and oth­er pre­cious gems from Africa.
Even though they indoc­tri­nat­ed their slaves to believe in a fan­tas­tic fairy­land after death, they were busy cre­at­ing gen­er­a­tional wealth for their offspring.
The phys­i­cal enslave­ment of Blacks may have end­ed, but the men­tal chains remain. Not to be out­done, many Black Christian preach­ers are still telling their con­gre­ga­tions that all they have to do is pray. Bring the tithes and offer­ings to the church, don’t wor­ry about your mort­gages and rental com­mit­ments; God will provide.
Whether one qual­i­fies for $20,000 or $10,000 relief from the bur­den of stu­dent loan debt, it is a big f*****g deal, as then Vice President Biden told President Barack Obama when he signed the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) into law. Now the poor­est Americans in the red­dest of states are some of the biggest ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the afford­able care act. Yeah, there is no wealth or health care just around the cor­ner when you are poor and sick. It is exact­ly why the idea of gov­ern­ment was broached in the first place, it is sup­posed to work exact­ly as the afford­able care act, and stu­dent loan debt for­give­ness is working.
Those of you with work­ing mem­o­ries will recall the vehe­mence with which Republicans fought that law even after its passage.
Rest in Peace, Senator John McCain.

Republicans are opposed to any form of relief from the gov­ern­ment that ben­e­fits the poor. The cal­cu­lus is that Black peo­ple and oth­er peo­ple of col­or will benefit.
The irony is that there is a larg­er block of poor whites than there are Blacks, and so con­trary to their racist beliefs, as was the case when Newt Gingrich gut­ted social safe­ty nets for the poor dur­ing the Clinton years, it was poor whites who were the largest group of recip­i­ents of gov­ern­ment largess.
But Republicans nev­er cared about poor white peo­ple except when they need­ed their votes. They see poor whites as dis­pos­able col­lat­er­al. As long as they can con­tin­ue to con­vince the mass­es of the poor­er white peo­ple that they are fight­ing to retain their white priv­i­lege, they are assured of their votes.
As it was dur­ing slav­ery, poor whites still believe in the lie of white suprema­cy. Republican lead­ers are guar­an­teed of their sup­port as use­ful idiots for the fore­see­able future.
If you are Black and will receive some relief from the Biden Administration on your stu­dent load debt, say thank you, Lord. Say thank you, President Biden, and shut up about it not being enough!!!!!

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.

WHITE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE

President Biden believes that a post-high school edu­ca­tion should be a tick­et to a mid­dle-class life, but for too many, the cost of bor­row­ing for col­lege is a life­long bur­den that deprives them of that oppor­tu­ni­ty. During the cam­paign, he promised to pro­vide stu­dent debt relief. Today, the Biden Administration is fol­low­ing through on that promise and pro­vid­ing fam­i­lies breath­ing room as they pre­pare to start re-pay­ing loans after the eco­nom­ic cri­sis brought on by the pandemic.

Since 1980, the total cost of both four-year pub­lic and four-year pri­vate col­lege has near­ly tripled, even after account­ing for infla­tion. Federal sup­port has not kept up: Pell Grants once cov­ered near­ly 80 per­cent of the cost of a four-year pub­lic col­lege degree for stu­dents from work­ing fam­i­lies, but now only cov­er a third. That has left many stu­dents from low- and mid­dle-income fam­i­lies with no choice but to bor­row if they want to get a degree. According to a Department of Education analy­sis, the typ­i­cal under­grad­u­ate stu­dent with loans now grad­u­ates with near­ly $25,000 in debt.

The sky­rock­et­ing cumu­la­tive fed­er­al stu­dent loan debt — $1.6 tril­lion and ris­ing for more than 45 mil­lion bor­row­ers — is a sig­nif­i­cant bur­den on America’s mid­dle class. Middle-class bor­row­ers strug­gle with high month­ly pay­ments and bal­loon­ing bal­ances that make it hard­er for them to build wealth, like buy­ing homes, putting away mon­ey for retire­ment, and start­ing small busi­ness­es.

For the most vul­ner­a­ble bor­row­ers, the effects of debt are even more crush­ing. Nearly one-third of bor­row­ers have debt but no degree, accord­ing to an analy­sis by the Department of Education of a recent cohort of under­grad­u­ates. Many of these stu­dents could not com­plete their degree because the cost of atten­dance was too high. About 16% of bor­row­ers are in default – includ­ing near­ly a third of senior cit­i­zens with stu­dent debt – which can result in the gov­ern­ment gar­nish­ing a borrower’s wages or low­er­ing a borrower’s cred­it score. The stu­dent debt bur­den also falls dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly on Black bor­row­ers. Twenty years after first enrolling in school, the typ­i­cal Black bor­row­er who start­ed col­lege in the 1995 – 96 school year still owed 95% of their orig­i­nal stu­dent debt.

Today, President Biden is announc­ing a three-part plan to pro­vide more breath­ing room to America’s work­ing fam­i­lies as they con­tin­ue to recov­er from the strains asso­ci­at­ed with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. This plan offers tar­get­ed debt relief as part of a com­pre­hen­sive effort to address the bur­den of grow­ing col­lege costs and make the stu­dent loan sys­tem more man­age­able for work­ing fam­i­lies. The President is announc­ing that the Department of Education will: 

• Provide tar­get­ed debt relief to address the finan­cial harms of the pan­dem­ic, ful­fill­ing the President’s cam­paign com­mit­ment. The Department of Education will pro­vide up to $20,000 in debt can­cel­la­tion to Pell Grant recip­i­ents with loans held by the Department of Education, and up to $10,000 in debt can­cel­la­tion to non-Pell Grant recip­i­ents. Borrowers are eli­gi­ble for this relief if their indi­vid­ual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for mar­ried cou­ples). No high-income indi­vid­ual or high-income house­hold – in the top 5% of incomes – will ben­e­fit from this action. To ensure a smooth tran­si­tion to repay­ment and pre­vent unnec­es­sary defaults, the pause on fed­er­al stu­dent loan repay­ment will be extend­ed one final time through December 31, 2022. Borrowers should expect to resume pay­ment in January 2023.
• Make the stu­dent loan sys­tem more man­age­able for cur­rent and future bor­row­ers by:
  
  • Cutting month­ly pay­ments in half for under­grad­u­ate loans. The Department of Education is propos­ing a new income-dri­ven repay­ment plan that pro­tects more low-income bor­row­ers from mak­ing any pay­ments and caps month­ly pay­ments for under­grad­u­ate loans at 5% of a borrower’s dis­cre­tionary income — half of the rate that bor­row­ers must pay now under most exist­ing plans. This means that the aver­age annu­al stu­dent loan pay­ment will be low­ered by more than $1,000 for both cur­rent and future borrowers. 
  • Fixing the bro­ken Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) pro­gram by propos­ing a rule that bor­row­ers who have worked at a non­prof­it, in the mil­i­tary, or in fed­er­al, state, trib­al, or local gov­ern­ment, receive appro­pri­ate cred­it toward loan for­give­ness. These improve­ments will build on tem­po­rary changes the Department of Education has already made to PSLF, under which more than 175,000 pub­lic ser­vants have already had more than $10 bil­lion in loan for­give­ness approved.
• Protect future stu­dents and tax­pay­ers by reduc­ing the cost of col­lege and hold­ing schools account­able when they hike up prices. The President cham­pi­oned the largest increase to Pell Grants in over a decade and one of the largest one-time influx­es to col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties. To fur­ther reduce the cost of col­lege, the President will con­tin­ue to fight to dou­ble the max­i­mum Pell Grant and make com­mu­ni­ty col­lege free. Meanwhile, col­leges have an oblig­a­tion to keep prices rea­son­able and ensure bor­row­ers get val­ue for their invest­ments, not debt they can­not afford. This Administration has already tak­en key steps to strength­en account­abil­i­ty, includ­ing in areas where the pre­vi­ous Administration weak­ened rules. The Department of Education is announc­ing new efforts to ensure stu­dent bor­row­ers get val­ue for their col­lege costs.

Provide Targeted Debt Relief, Fulfilling the President’s Campaign Commitment

To address the finan­cial harms of the pan­dem­ic for low- and mid­dle-income bor­row­ers and avoid defaults as loan repay­ment restarts next year, the Department of Education will pro­vide up to $20,000 in loan relief to bor­row­ers with loans held by the Department of Education whose indi­vid­ual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for mar­ried cou­ples) and who received a Pell Grant. Nearly every Pell Grant recip­i­ent came from a fam­i­ly that made less than $60,000 a year, and Pell Grant recip­i­ents typ­i­cal­ly expe­ri­ence more chal­lenges repay­ing their debt than oth­er bor­row­ers. Borrowers who meet those income stan­dards but did not receive a Pell Grant in col­lege can receive up to $10,000 in loan relief.

The Pell Grant pro­gram is one of America’s most effec­tive finan­cial aid pro­grams — but its val­ue has been erod­ed over time. Pell Grant recip­i­ents are more than 60% of the bor­row­er pop­u­la­tion. The Department of Education esti­mates that rough­ly 27 mil­lion bor­row­ers will be eli­gi­ble to receive up to $20,000 in relief, help­ing these bor­row­ers meet their eco­nom­ic poten­tial and avoid eco­nom­ic harm from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Current stu­dents with loans are eli­gi­ble for this debt relief. Borrowers who are depen­dent stu­dents will be eli­gi­ble for relief based on parental income, rather than their own income.

If all bor­row­ers claim the relief they are enti­tled to, these actions will:

• Provide relief to up to 43 mil­lion bor­row­ers, includ­ing can­celling the full remain­ing bal­ance for rough­ly 20 mil­lion borrowers.

• Target relief dol­lars to low- and mid­dle-income bor­row­ers. The Department of Education esti­mates that, among bor­row­ers who are no longer in school, near­ly 90% of relief dol­lars will go to those earn­ing less than $75,000 a year. No indi­vid­ual mak­ing more than $125,000 or house­hold mak­ing more than $250,000 – the top 5% of incomes in the United States – will receive relief.
• Help bor­row­ers of all ages. The Department of Education esti­mates that, among bor­row­ers who are eli­gi­ble for relief, 21% are 25 years and under and 44% are ages 26 – 39. More than a third are bor­row­ers age 40 and up, includ­ing 5% of bor­row­ers who are senior citizens.
• Advance racial equi­ty. By tar­get­ing relief to bor­row­ers with the high­est eco­nom­ic need, the Administration’s actions are like­ly to help nar­row the racial wealth gap. Black stu­dents are more like­ly to have to bor­row for school and more like­ly to take out larg­er loans. Black bor­row­ers are twice as like­ly to have received Pell Grants com­pared to their white peers. Other bor­row­ers of col­or are also more like­ly than their peers to receive Pell Grants. That is why an Urban Institute study found that debt for­give­ness pro­grams tar­get­ing those who received Pell Grants while in col­lege will advance racial equity.

The Department of Education will work quick­ly and effi­cient­ly to set up a sim­ple appli­ca­tion process for bor­row­ers to claim relief. The appli­ca­tion will be avail­able no lat­er than when the pause on fed­er­al stu­dent loan repay­ments ter­mi­nates at the end of the year. Nearly 8 mil­lion bor­row­ers may be eli­gi­ble to receive relief auto­mat­i­cal­ly because their rel­e­vant income data is already avail­able to the Department. 

Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, this debt relief will not be treat­ed as tax­able income for the fed­er­al income tax purposes.

To help ensure a smooth tran­si­tion back to repay­ment, the Department of Education is extend­ing the stu­dent loan pause a final time through December 31, 2022. No one with fed­er­al­ly-held loans has had to pay a sin­gle dol­lar in loan pay­ments since President Biden took office.

Make the Student Loan System More Manageable for Current and Future Borrowers

Fixing Existing Loan Repayment to Lower Monthly Payments

The Administration is reform­ing stu­dent loan repay­ment plans so both cur­rent and future low- and mid­dle-income bor­row­ers will have small­er and more man­age­able month­ly payments.

The Department of Education has the author­i­ty to cre­ate income-dri­ven repay­ment plans, which cap what bor­row­ers pay each month based on a per­cent­age of their dis­cre­tionary income. Most of these plans can­cel a borrower’s remain­ing debt once they make 20 years of month­ly pay­ments. But the exist­ing ver­sions of these plans are too com­plex and too lim­it­ed. As a result, mil­lions of bor­row­ers who might ben­e­fit from them do not sign up, and the mil­lions who do sign up are still often left with unman­age­able month­ly payments.

To address these con­cerns and fol­low through on Congress’ orig­i­nal vision for income-dri­ven repay­ment, the Department of Education is propos­ing a rule to do the following:

• For under­grad­u­ate loans, cut in half the amount that bor­row­ers have to pay each month from 10% to 5% of dis­cre­tionary income.
• Raise the amount of income that is con­sid­ered non-dis­cre­tionary income and there­fore is pro­tect­ed from repay­ment, guar­an­tee­ing that no bor­row­er earn­ing under 225% of the fed­er­al pover­ty lev­el — about the annu­al equiv­a­lent of a $15 min­i­mum wage for a sin­gle bor­row­er — will have to make a month­ly payment.
• Forgive loan bal­ances after 10 years of pay­ments, instead of 20 years, for bor­row­ers with orig­i­nal loan bal­ances of $12,000 or less. The Department of Education esti­mates that this reform will allow near­ly all com­mu­ni­ty col­lege bor­row­ers to be debt-free with­in 10 years.
• Cover the borrower’s unpaid month­ly inter­est, so that unlike oth­er exist­ing income-dri­ven repay­ment plans, no borrower’s loan bal­ance will grow as long as they make their month­ly pay­ments — even when that month­ly pay­ment is $0 because their income is low.

These reforms would sim­pli­fy loan repay­ment and deliv­er sig­nif­i­cant sav­ings to low- and mid­dle-income bor­row­ers. For example:

• A typ­i­cal sin­gle con­struc­tion work­er (mak­ing $38,000 a year) with a con­struc­tion man­age­ment cre­den­tial would pay only $31 a month, com­pared to the $147 they pay now under the most recent income-dri­ven repay­ment plan, for annu­al sav­ings of near­ly $1,400.

• A typ­i­cal sin­gle pub­lic school teacher with an under­grad­u­ate degree (mak­ing $44,000 a year) would pay only $56 a month on their loans, com­pared to the $197 they pay now under the most recent income-dri­ven repay­ment plan, for annu­al sav­ings of near­ly $1,700.
• A typ­i­cal nurse (mak­ing $77,000 a year) who is mar­ried with two kids would pay only $61 a month on their under­grad­u­ate loans, com­pared to the $295 they pay now under the most recent income-dri­ven repay­ment plan, for annu­al sav­ings of more than $2,800.

For each of these bor­row­ers, their bal­ances would not grow as long as they are mak­ing their month­ly pay­ments, and their remain­ing debt would be for­giv­en after they make the required num­ber of qual­i­fy­ing payments.

Further, the Department of Education will make it eas­i­er for bor­row­ers who enroll in this new plan to stay enrolled. Starting in the sum­mer of 2023, bor­row­ers will be able to allow the Department of Education to auto­mat­i­cal­ly pull their income infor­ma­tion year after year, avoid­ing the has­sle of need­ing to recer­ti­fy their income annually.

Ensuring Public Servants Receive Credit Toward Loan Forgiveness

Borrowers work­ing in pub­lic ser­vice are enti­tled to earn cred­it toward debt relief under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) pro­gram. But because of com­plex eli­gi­bil­i­ty restric­tions, his­toric imple­men­ta­tion fail­ures, and poor coun­sel­ing giv­en to bor­row­ers, many bor­row­ers have not received the cred­it they deserve for their pub­lic service.

The Department of Education has announced time-lim­it­ed changes to PSLF that pro­vide an eas­i­er path to for­give­ness of all out­stand­ing debt for eli­gi­ble fed­er­al stu­dent loan bor­row­ers who have served at a non-prof­it, in the mil­i­tary, or in fed­er­al, state, Tribal, or local gov­ern­ment for at least 10 years, includ­ing non-con­sec­u­tive­ly. Those who have served less than 10 years may now more eas­i­ly get cred­it for their ser­vice to date toward even­tu­al for­give­ness. These changes allow eli­gi­ble bor­row­ers to gain addi­tion­al cred­it toward for­give­ness, even if they had been told pre­vi­ous­ly that they had the wrong loan type.

The Department of Education also has pro­posed reg­u­la­to­ry changes to ensure more effec­tive imple­men­ta­tion of the PSLF pro­gram mov­ing for­ward. Specifically, the Department of Education has pro­posed allow­ing more pay­ments to qual­i­fy for PSLF includ­ing par­tial, lump sum, and late pay­ments, and allow­ing cer­tain kinds of defer­ments and for­bear­ances, such as those for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps ser­vice, National Guard duty, and mil­i­tary ser­vice, to count toward PSLF. The Department of Education also pro­posed to ensure the rules work bet­ter for non-tenured instruc­tors whose col­leges need to cal­cu­late their full-time employment.

To ensure bor­row­ers are aware of the tem­po­rary changes, the White House has launched four PSLF Days of Action ded­i­cat­ed to bor­row­ers in spe­cif­ic sec­tors: gov­ern­ment employ­ees, edu­ca­tors, health­care work­ers and first respon­ders, and non-prof­it employ­ees. You can find out oth­er infor­ma­tion about the tem­po­rary changes on PSLF​.gov. You must apply to PSLF before the tem­po­rary changes end on October 31, 2022.

Protecting Borrowers and Taxpayers from Steep Increases in College Costs

While pro­vid­ing this relief to low- and mid­dle-income bor­row­ers, the President is focused on keep­ing col­lege costs under con­trol. Under this Administration, stu­dents have had more mon­ey in their pock­ets to pay for col­lege. The President signed the largest increase to the max­i­mum Pell Grant in over a decade and pro­vid­ed near­ly $40 bil­lion to col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties through the American Rescue Plan, much of which was used for emer­gency stu­dent finan­cial aid, allow­ing stu­dents to breathe a lit­tle easier.

Additionally, the Department of Education has already tak­en sig­nif­i­cant steps to strength­en account­abil­i­ty, so that stu­dents are not left with moun­tains of debt with lit­tle pay­off. The agency has re-estab­lished the enforce­ment unit in the Office of Federal Student Aid and it is hold­ing accred­i­tors’ feet to the fire. In fact, the Department just with­drew autho­riza­tion for the accred­i­tor that over­saw schools respon­si­ble for some of the worst for-prof­it scan­dals. The agency will also pro­pose a rule to hold career pro­grams account­able for leav­ing their grad­u­ates with moun­tains of debt they can­not repay, a rule the pre­vi­ous Administration repealed.

Building off of these efforts, the Department of Education is announc­ing new actions to hold account­able col­leges that have con­tributed to the stu­dent debt cri­sis. These include pub­lish­ing an annu­al watch list of the pro­grams with the worst debt lev­els in the coun­try, so that stu­dents reg­is­ter­ing for the next aca­d­e­m­ic year can steer clear of pro­grams with poor out­comes. They also include request­ing insti­tu­tion­al improve­ment plans from the worst actors that out­line how the col­leges with the most con­cern­ing debt out­comes intend to bring down debt levels.