#student debt relief

[the-cimmerians]

The Biden administration yesterday rolled out its latest tool to tackle the student debt crisis, and as we discussed earlier this year, it’s a good one. While the administration is still working on a broader debt forgiveness plan that it hopes will survive the Trump/McConnell Supreme Court, the new income-driven repayment program, called the “Saving on a Valuable Education” (SAVE) plan, should drastically cut the amount of student loan payments for lower-income borrowers, and for many, will actually get those payments down to zero.

[ ]

With the SAVE plan, the Education Department will no longer charge any interest that isn’t covered by the monthly loan payment, putting an end to the interest-accumulating hamster wheel that so many of us know all too well, where you make your payments on time but your goddamn loan balance keeps growing. As the fact sheet explains:

For example, if a borrower has $50 in interest that accumulates each month and their payment is $30 per month under the new SAVE plan, the remaining $20 would not be charged as long as they make their $30 monthly payment. The Department of Education estimates that 70 percent of borrowers who were on an IDR plan before the payment pause would stand to benefit from this change.

As with other income-driven plans, once a borrower has made payments for 20 years (for undergrad debt) or 25 years (for grad school debt), any remaining balance will be forgiven — yes, even if the monthly payment amount was zero for some or all of that period. Explain to your rightwing uncle that such forgiveness is not a new gimmick Joe Biden made up; it’s how IDR plans have worked since Congress authorized them in the 1990s.

[mylionheart2]

[foreverlogical]

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Get out and vote for Biden/Harris or suffer under the crushing debt, low wages, persecution Trump Republicans will bring.

[uncle-knobheads]

USAmericans with federal student loan debt, the application for up to $20,000 in debt relief is live (in beta). The application is super easy and only takes a couple of minutes to fill out.

Tell your friends.

Tell your enemies.

Tell everyone.

https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief/application

[whenweallvote]

Did anyone else catch that voting reference on Beyoncé's new album? 👀 🏇 Beyoncé, thank you so much for the gift that is COWBOY CARTER. Your new album reminds us that we ALL have power. Together, we can stand up for what we believe in and this year is the perfect opportunity to do that at the ballot box. From voting rights and access to reproductive healthcare to student debt relief and climate change, the issues that impact us most are on the ballot across the country. And as Queen Bey says at the end of Ya Ya, we need to “Keep the faith, and VOTE!” You can register to vote in the time it takes you to listen to Sweet Honey Buckin’ (or whichever song is your favorite!). Visit weall.vote/register now! 🤠🗳️

[silvermoon424]

God it pisses me off so much when, when talking about the student loan relief debate, deliberately obtuse losers are like "You took a loan, pay it back. What a concept. Nobody has personal responsibility anymore!"

Like on top of the arguments against how exploitative these loans are and how 18-year-olds get pressured into signing them without understanding the true ramifications, it's not just as fucking simple as "paying back a loan." You have to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars every single month ON TOP OF your huge rent/mortgage payment, your medical bills, your car payment, your groceries, etc. A lot of people aren't going to be able to magically materialize that extra money, or if they can it's going to be coming out of what they usually put into savings and what spending money they have. There is a huge cost of living crisis going on that its beyond the average person's control.

But I bet these same fucking people will be like "Fine, then don't buy Starbucks lattes or avocado toast for 10 years until you pay off your debt" and that's when I'll shoot them on sight

[thoughtportal]

[reasonandempathy]

Looking on from abroad, I don't like any of the recent rulings by SCOTUS ideologically, but they're also clearly correct. The constitution is not in line with liberal or leftwing values. Like I'm not saying "thus these values should not be pursued", but the court's role is to say what the constitution says; and the constitution says "fuck the poor" etc.

They're not though. Before getting into it you need to be aware that there are proper and improper procedures for how these things are done. It makes sense, because otherwise the Supreme Court could pro-actively dictate what the law is and isn't, as you understand.

There have to be cases brought to them, there need to be parties to that case, etc. Does this make sense?

With that said, a brief line about why the recent rulings are actually incorrect.

Dobbs v Jackson (Overturning Roe v Wade) - Arguably the most defensible ruling, it still flies in the face on 50 years of legal precedent, the rulings stand in exact opposition to sworn testimony of many of the judges, and it's still wildly ideologically driven. They were put on that bench to overrule Roe and they took the opportunity to do so.

Biden v Nebraska (No student debt relief) - The Heroes act, which was the law at question, gave the secretary of education the ability to modify or waive parts of the law. The majority opinion is very much a "you're right by what the law says, but it looks wrong to us." They rooted a lot of their ruling on "There's no way that Congress wanted this" despite the heroes act explicitly being for the relief of educational debt during times of national crisis.

Stewart (Gay Web Design) - There is no case. On top of the fact that this is explicitly counter to the entirety of existing civil rights law, precedent, and theory, the web designer was never asked to make a gay wedding website. It was a god damn sham from the word go. It was rooted in a theoretical "wouldn't it be fucked up if I had to do a thing?" It also gives the framework and arguments, in the Justices own god-damnable words, to overturn the Civil Rights Act, Gay Marriage laws, and even a whole host of anti-espionage laws. I actually would like some of those to be overturned, but I'm including them here to emphasize how idiotic, short-sighted, and bullshit the ruling was.

SFA vs Harvard (Affirmative Action) - Also flies in the face of decades of precedent and laws, but more importantly it flies in the face of this own court's other rulings. You may have heard about Allen v Milligan, where the Supreme Court threw out an Alabama congressional map for being really, really racist. That's correct: the map was, but the support for throwing it out was the same argument for the dissent in this case. State bodies can use racial makeup and information in efforts to eliminate racist institutions.

You can make judgments based on race if you're getting rid of racism, basically. Which is what Affirmative Action is intended to do. People can argue that it might need to be more fluid, less restrictive, or reconfigured frequently, sure. But that is a legitimate pursuit and application of governmental power.

There are more problems, and more cases, but there's a reason why law schools and firms all over the country are collectively giving side-eye and shit-talk to this Court.

[originalleftist]

For anyone wondering what Biden has done for "ordinary Americans", or why they should vote to give him four more years (besides keeping a literal fascist out of power).

[the-cimmerians]

The Biden administration announced Friday that it had processed the first round of a huge adjustment to student loan debt, which will result in $39 billion in debt being canceled for some 804,000 borrowers. The loan adjustment was announced last year, and will provide debt relief to borrowers who were, to put it bluntly, ripped off by incompetent or downright fraudulent mismanagement of the government’s Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) program. And yes, we said this was the first round: If you think you might qualify for this relief too, you have until the end of 2023 to get in line for the next rounds, as we’ll discuss later.

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

There's a few Supreme Court decisions, and honestly I don't have the spoons to give input so.

Biden will announce his next course of action today. Let me remind you that anything he does from this point on is essentially to get votes. Next presidential election is coming up, and if he can't provide his biggest promise, he's not gonna look good in 2024.

(Fuck affirmative action and LGBTQ+ rights. He never gave a shit about any of these things. This is all to get support from the youngest generations of leftists this next election.)

-fae

[thundergrace]

https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief/application

The student debt relief application is live and that shit legitimately takes less than two minutes, they pretty much just ask for basic contact information and your ssn.

I was going to say make sure you do it before the end of the year, but it looks like you have until 12/31/23, unless that's a typo.