On Wednesday, President Joe Biden canceled $1.2 billion of student loan debt for 153,000 borrowers. Eligible citizens must be enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan with an initial balance of less than $12,000. Borrowers must have also been making payments for at least 10 years. Critics of the most recent debt relief scoffed at the amount and the criteria, citing recent graduates currently pummeled by astronomical debt levels. Since the Biden Administration has taken over, $138 billion in debt for nearly 4 million borrowers has been forgiven.
It is necessary to put the student loan debt conversation in proper context by speaking about the full amount. There is $1.74 trillion worth of student loan debt in the United States. One percent of this tremendous dollar amount is $17.4 billion. This means that $1.2 billion is a fraction of a percent of the total debt. Also, student loan debt is not static. In the 2021-2022 academic year, nearly $100 billion of new student debt was created. The total debt forgiven by the Biden administration since 2021 is about the same year’s worth of new debt.
SOURCES:
U.S. Student Loan Debt Statistics | LendingTree
Biden Cancels $1.2 Billion in Student Loan Debt for 150,000 Borrowers – The New York Times
Nearly 153,000 people will be notified that their student loan debt is canceled | CNN Politics
Biden cancels student debt for 150K borrowers | The Hill
Nearly 153,000 borrowers get student loans canceled under new Biden plan : NPR
Biden cancels $1.2 billion in student loan debt for 150,000 borrowers – ABC News
CSPAN on X: “President Biden: “Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be cancelled, their debts. But my MAGA Republicans friends in the Congress, elected officials and special interests stepped in and sued us and the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.” https://t.co/ruDBNZtb6C” / X
