IBR appears to be capped at 225% of poverty level, so basically $30K per year income to qualify.

SI

Ah, that's what I was missing. Thanks.

That, and $12k would barely cover one year in college. You still need to pay down the cost to keep your debt that low.

To offer an alternative from the far off realm of socialist ... Germany: Interestingly, in the mid 00s there was a push to inact admission fees and a few states did it. Only to then undo this a few years later as a failed experiment. Anyway, as i started after that i only had to pay my university 700 a year as an administrative fee and that not only, on top of paying for the administrative services, contributed to subsidizing meals on campus but also a public transport card for the whole state. So the school itself (as are 95% of universities) is almost entirely state funded or from grant money.

After an initial phase of paying from my previous savings (i first did an 'apprenticeship'/dual traineeship and worked fulltime for a few years after high school) i got about 700 a month in support from the state for rent and living expenses (and worked jobs for a about 350-450 a month), half as a loan without interest and half free.
The debt from the no interest loan is capped at 10k as well and then can be further reduced (from that 10k) for 1) finishing the degree(s) on time, 2) finishing in the Top x% of your class and 3) and further decreased if paid in full after roughly 2 years following the degree.

In the end had to pay back about 6.700 Euros of the roughly 30k i received (again, almost all rent and living expenses) which included support for a semester in New Zealand (though i also had to loan money from my sister as it was quite a bit over the cap of what is supported). If you could not pay it back in full you would pay back roughly 130 a month, which can be paused if earning less than amount X a month.

Btw, anyone who has paid off a loan since March 2020 can get the money they paid (up to the 10k cap) refunded.

My Dad told me how college was affordable enough that you could pay for it with just what you made in a Summer job (he was sorting mail/packages for the post office I believe).

What bothers me is that student loans are treated as some special entity by some where help should not apply. Watching people from some non-profit think tank (taxpayer subsidized) who took a PPP loan (taxpayer subsidized) and own a house (price propped up by taxpayers) complain about this is just eye-rolling. If college kids have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, so should everyone else.

I still think it's ridiculous to award a married couple making just under $250K, who can now write off a decent amount of law/business school debt (my understanding is this isn't just undergraduate debt).

Now really, how is that tailored enough to only help those who REALLY need it? It's not.

It feels like this could backfire. I'm curious the ages of the people this would most benefit, but I assume they are among the youngest, right? Those are the groups who vote the least. I guess the calculus is that between a cash incentive and things like abortion rights, this is going to impactfully increase the percentage of younger voters?

You are right. I'm sure everyone with a student loan today would not complain one bit if they came out and said going forward, college was free, but everyone with loans still had to pay them.

You know, just because they suffer doesn't mean everyone else should going forward.

lol @ Boomer Trolley Problem

SI

Politicians should do what they think is right and what helps the public. College students (and young adults) have been shit on for decades because they are the smallest voting bloc.

Regardless, it polls well.

A majority of Americans put affordable college before loan forgiveness : NPR

Push came to shove i could have propably paid it just by working as well, as said there are hardly any costs to pay the University and i also had very few expenses for books et al as 95% of what you need was provided (digital, library, in my case a 'film library').
But doing that on top of 25 hours of courses, not including prep work, as well as either exams or (in my case mostly) 2-4 papers over the break periods (2 semesters here, so 2 break periods) would then absolutely 1) be a disadvantage to students with rich parents and/or 2) result in needing longer to graduate. And no way in hell could one do a semester abroad or take (largely unpaid) internships to get practical experience at the same rate.

I don't really have much to say regarding the current question. I actually would agree that this is just as much nothing more than an inadequate bandaid as others would say it is "unfair" (or from the crazy parade going as far as somehow dangerous for, i guess, western civilization). But it also seems like there are a few other changes benefitting future students (well, unless MAGA nukes it eventually):

Obviously the topline $10k-$20k forgiveness is going to get the headlines, but this income-based repayment plan rule will have a big impact for low and middle-income borrowers (especially straight out of college) pic.twitter.com/fYDH1ICTgj

— Justin Sink (@justinsink) August 24, 2022

I don't see how "affordable college" is even possible with how reliant colleges have become on the high payment spiral but this seems an honest attempt to at least somewhat curb potential harm. In a somewhat roundabout way but still.

When you keep giving cheap loans or forgiving them the long term result isn't more affordable college it's more expensive college/a bigger transfer of government money to the schools and loan companies.

I'm not opposed to loan forgiveness, but I'd rather see the money spent on subsidizing public higher education. The free market can do what it will for private higher education, but there should be a legitimate alternative, and IMO that's the best way to keep costs down long term.

This isn't either/or. You can do both. First, you are going to have to elect more reasonable people to office that don't demonize higher education. Or all education really.

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I’m just sitting here laughing at all the GOP lines about “this is going to pay off all the Harvard Law school loans, rich people are getting a free handout, etc”

First of all. Sit down. You passed a trillion dollar tax break for the wealthiest of the wealthy. Second of all, did they not see the fine print on what income this is capped at. Pretty sure all those rich lawyers and Harvard school grads are making more than the max required to even qualify.

So tired of these fucking windbags.

They have class war. It's their plan A attack, even if it doesn't really fit.

There are some Twitter accounts that just respond to a lot of these talking heads with a link to the PPP loan they took out. All these right-wing podcasts took them. Their issue isn't with the government giving out money, it's with the government giving out money to anyone but them.

Also $10k doesn't come close to paying off Harvard Law and rich people don't take out student loans (they don't even qualify for federal ones). They're rich!

This


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I underestimated the administration. I thought that the means-tested $10k would be a political disaster. The left wing would consider it too low, and the right would consider it a handout.

But by combining it with enhanced protections for low-income people, the administration managed (from what I can tell) to get the left/youth on board with it.

And the right wing criticisms seem . . . tired? The fact that every right wing pundit in the country apparently got a $100k+ PPP loan certainly helps with that.

And the real valid policy criticism of the proposal--that it doesn't solve the underlying problem and actually creates a moral hazard by setting the precedent that college loans will be forgiven--isn't going to cost the Dems a lot of votes. If you are the kind of right-leaning person who thinks of things analytically and not emotionally and talks about moral hazard, then you are probably not going to vote for the GOP until they purge the fascists from leadership.

Well, close.

https://mobile.twitter.com/MattGertz...694727/photo/2

I posted below link in previous page. If you look at the graphic in the middle, it shows 42% of beneficiaries are in the ($82-$141 and $141+) range. I think the discrepancy is probably because CNN chart is based on household (e.g. dual income household) whereas your quote is per person.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/24/polit...use/index.html

My favorite part about when Gertz tweets is how many people think its Gaetz.

I don't think the standard is Harvard or "pay off." Anyone with a post-graduate degree from anywhere should not be getting $10K relief, even if that's 5% of what they still owe.

Mid term polling is not trending in their direction and it should be based on the fundamentals. They're desperately trying to find something to energize the base and offset dem gains in polling.

Really? If you owe graduate degree money, you are probably paying many times more than 19k in interest on that loan. So, this is more a interest rebate than actually getting any of the loan forgiven.

I do wonder if poltically this is a gain or a loss for Dems. I think this is great for the base, and very important to young voters. The problem is young voters are very hard to count on, and are never anywhere near the numbers of older voters this might turn off. I sort of think it would have hurt more to break this promise, though. I think it is probably a wash more than a detriment.

Disagree. Take a loot at the number of young people registering to vote. Lots of them because of Dobbs but they aren't going anywhere, at least as long as the current iteration of the republican party is around. They are going to love this. The people who are yelling about being screwed, like that guy in Iowa with Warren making the rounds, were never voting Dem anyway.

Yes, really. We certainly moved at light speed from "government should provide basic education" to "government should subsidize post-graduate degrees" haven't we?

I keep seeing this idea that colleges should be responsible for the outcomes of their students. I get the appeal, but are people going to college for education or job training? Because if we are now deciding that its job training, we can 1) eliminate a lot of unnecessary general education classes and 2) probably greatly reduce the number of majors out there.

The government used to subsidize post-graduate degrees. The change has been to stop doing that. I think people would just like it to go back to how it was for previous generations who were able to get a subsidized education.

I'd also add that the people upset about this are also some of the same people who complain we don't have enough skilled labor and must open up more H1-B visas.

Yeah, I'm not really seeing a problem with producing more post-grad workers. Which would better benefit our country: more doctors and engineers, or more missile systems and no bid military contracts? Hmmmmmm....

White House Twitter putting out the PPP loan forgiveness amounts of all the Republicans critizing Student Loans forgiveness. *chef's kiss*

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The thread for reference.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven.https://t.co/4FoCymt8TB

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 25, 2022

Dems would be smart to pass a bill that would audit the PPP loans of any member of Congress that received one. Lets make sure there was no inappropriate use of those taxpayer funds they are so very concerned about.

So let me get this straight. A day or two ago in this thread, I was lectured at for pointing out that I paid off my entire law school debt by myself because it earned me a good enough job with upward mobility that it was much easier for me to pay off those debts. But out of this side of your mouth today, we should be subsidizing "me," 25 years later.

Got it.

If that's a policy decision our country wants to make, let Congress take it up. But for right now, to tailor relief to the people in this country who most need it in August of 2022, I'm going to stand by my position that there are better donees of our tax dollars than couples making $200K+ with post-graduate degree debt.

I paid off my student loan debts too. In my opinion, we should not have had to do that. I think education should be free and is a good use of taxpayer funds when you factor in all the societal benefits. We would both be in considerably better positions in life if we did not have to do that.

There is no way to correct that now, though. We can't go back in time 30 years to stop politicians from their FYGM attitudes toward those with little to no voting power. This is not a fix by any means, but it was something the President was legally obliged to do and will help countless people get out of debt.

You are overexaggerating the amount of wealthy people who are getting relief here. People who are as wealthy as you insinuate do not have student loans. They either didn't need them or paid them off quickly. And the silence toward those wealthy people receiving countless handouts over the years says a lot about people's true intentions.

I think this somes up some people's thinking.

There’s a Libyan parable about a petty man who was offered a wish under the condition that his neighbor would get double so he asked to be blind in one eye. https://t.co/kIMc5PCxGM

— Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) August 24, 2022

A quick google search pulls up an article from 2018 about first-year lawyer salaries in 2016. Six years ago, the median salary was $68K, and if you look at private sector only, it was $135K. I also saw an article from 2021 about first years making upwards of $200K. Those who went to the best law schools, who get those high-paying jobs off the bat, take on a shitload of debt. The degree is worth it, in most cases.

So, a married couple filing jointly where the husband is, say, 2 years out of law school making $150K while his wife is a stay-at-home mom, is eligible for $10K in relief. That's bullshit.

Also, let's talk about in general, what's the "middle class." Not $125K/$250K.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/24/stud...alculator.html


Let me be clear - I'm not arguing against this relief, I'm arguing it's going to too many people who don't need it. Or, perhaps, it is being targeted at too narrow a group (college/post-grad borrowers).

Too many Dems would be on that list.

I still think you're talking about a really small percentage of borrowers who fall in that category.

The tax cuts from a few years ago are probably going to save that couple you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetime. I'd be far more upset with that than a one time $10k discharge of a federal loan (of which a good percent is just interest).

It just seems petty when the government is constantly forking over trillions for wealthy people and creating new ways for them to not have to pay taxes. I wish there was a fraction of the anger over this toward the hedge fund loophole that still exists because of 51 Senators.

No doubt. Still would like to see someone propose it and find out which people start having panic attacks on the House floor.

I thought the tax cuts were stupid and didn't want them. So I agree with that 100%.

Having some student loan forgiveness on top of the salary for public service would seem to be a great solution to the law school conundrum. I like it better than the government should pay for 100% of my school until I'm in my mid to late twenties then I should be free to go to the higher paying private sector with no trade off.

The tradeoff is that you'll be paying more in taxes in the higher paying private sector for the rest of your life.

I would be for subsidizing post graduate education for degrees that would be helpful to society. So, law school wouldn't qualify.

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As a lawyer licensed in 3 states, I agree. Too much competition already!

One thing is certain, we are all idiots for not getting some of that sweet PPP money.

In a different universe, Rs would respond to Biden's debt relief by saying "This is poorly targeted and doesn't address the deeper issues. Here's our better plan." But the GOP no longer does policy — and their actual response was awesomely tone-deaf 1/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) August 26, 2022

This is an aspect I hadn't thought of.

Hell, us here on a football video game message board have managed to have a semi-nuanced discussion of the pros and cons of the policy proposals regarding educational costs. Certainly more of one than has happened in DC.

It should not be hard at all for the GOP to say "Hey, college affordability is a real problem. Here's our proposed solution and why it is better than Biden's." I mean, that's how politics worked for a long time. Each side had policy proposals. Vibes, etc. mattered a lot. But there was some substance under all that.

Here, you just have nothing. The party is so all-in on culture war screaming and Hunter Biden's Laptop that's there no one even pretending to propose plans to fix things.

And we just expect that at this point.

What a shame for the party of Lincoln and Reagan.

Why do you think there was never a Republican health plan? Other than "bill the wall" and punish illegals, no comprehensive immigration policy? Policy can be debated. It can be weighed on its merits. It also can be exposed as a sham. Much easier just to demonize the other side. That way you don't have to do the hard thing, actually govern.

Scammers certainly benefitted. It is estimated that 1.8 millions loan were fraudulent. I'm guessing that's a low number.

But don't worry, we have 50 people working on getting those scammers prosecuted.

Thanks Democrats and Republicans. This is why I'm voting 3rd party this fall.