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United States Government

$127 Billion in US Student Loans Now Flagged for Cancellation - About 30% of Planned Amount (msn.com) 234

The Wall Street Journal reports that more than three million Americans have now had a total of $127 billion in student loans flagged for cancellation. (Which for 3 million would average out to over $40,000 apiece).

Interestingly, the article notes this happened despite a set back for forgiveness in America's highest court this June: The high court ruled that the Biden administration couldn't cancel hundreds of billions of dollars for tens millions of student-loan holders, reasoning that the authority for such a broad-based policy doesn't exist under the law. While that closed one path, Biden tapped a variety of different tools that no previous president had ever used to this extent. Since taking office in 2021, the Biden administration has arranged to cancel loans equal to around 30% of the total projected cost of its blocked mass cancellation plan.
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$127 Billion in US Student Loans Now Flagged for Cancellation - About 30% of Planned Amount

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    ...for tax purposes.

    • by ranton ( 36917 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @07:53AM (#63965318)

      Please tell me this will be considered income for tax purposes.

      Some of it will and some of it won't. These loans are being forgiven in various different ways, and the American Rescue Plan Act (2021) exempted some student loan forgiveness methods from federal taxation through 2025. Anyone having their loans forgiven should definitely use a professional tax preparer this year, regardless of their regular income.

    • by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @10:04AM (#63965732)
      not if you're a supreme court judge
    • Nope, and neither does California. It's pretty sweet.

  • by LondoMollari ( 172563 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @06:44AM (#63965208) Homepage

    Instead of forgiving student loans and shifting the burden to everyone instead of those who agreed to the loans, Biden should be focused on preventing these universities from milking students for so much money with so little value in return. Biden is simply buying votes from some instead of proposing laws that would end the cash grab and protect future generations. By extension, Biden is also giving the universities a mega cash handout to continue what they are doing to the next class, and the class after that, etc.

    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @07:00AM (#63965230)

      The universities were paid years ago. This is not a handout to the universities. It makes no difference to them.

      A bigger problem is that Congress will be less willing to fund student loans in the future now that they have turned into handouts rather than loans.

      Default rates will also be likely to rise now that the government is rewarding those who borrowed the most and repaid the least.

      • by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @07:22AM (#63965276) Journal

        Yes it doesn't touch the universities one way or another...

        But the point stands: Stop talking about forgiveness and first make sure it doesn't happen anymore in the first place.

        The Biden administration is basically sitting in a boat that is sinking and instead of plugging the whole, they keep shoveling water overboard.

        • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @07:50AM (#63965306)

          Stop talking about forgiveness and first make sure it doesn't happen anymore in the first place.

          That's easy to say, but higher education costs have soared for many reasons and nobody agrees on what the solution is.

          • by jamesborr ( 876769 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @09:27AM (#63965588)

            Costs increased because they could increase. When the federal government took over the student loan business and removed any reasonable risk standards, then the colleges were happy to increase costs to the extent that students were able to get funded -- which unfortunately was way out of whack in relation to the value actually received. If all of the students which took out the loans were able to get jobs which paid enough to service the loans, then this would never have been a problem.

            Want to make sure that the federal government won't have to deal with this balance sheet issue again, simple, ban federal student loans as well as student loan guarantees -- i.e. go back to where the situation was for the vast majority of our countries history. Students looking to get reasonable loans for remunerative skills/educations will find sufficient funding in the private loan markets -- those that can't -- well, you just saved a pile of money for skills which deliver minimal value.

            The additional benefit to reining in costs at these institutions is that maybe self funded college educations will again be attainable. The reality is that most of the existing institutions have spent far too much money on administrators and facilities and far too little on professors.

          • Stop talking about forgiveness and first make sure it doesn't happen anymore in the first place.

            That's easy to say, but higher education costs have soared for many reasons and nobody agrees on what the solution is.

            Easy federally-backed loans are the primary reason higher education costs have soared. There are many possible solution, but mass debt forgiveness isn't one of them. It's a kindness to debtholders that will make the underlying problem worse.

          • by J-1000 ( 869558 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @12:58PM (#63966310)

            nobody agrees on what the solution is

            Even to the most obtuse observer I think it would be clear that loan forgiveness offers no incentive for the university to change, and in fact encourages more unbearable loans, with the gamble that the government might foot the bill in a pinch.

            So even if avoiding loan forgiveness isn't the solution, instituting loan forgiveness is going to make the problem worse without further changes.

          • Stop talking about forgiveness and first make sure it doesn't happen anymore in the first place.

            That's easy to say, but higher education costs have soared for many reasons and nobody agrees on what the solution is.

            there is zero downward pressure on the price of college. There's no risk to lenders, they can lend as much as the want and the return is guaranteed by the federal government. That means colleges can charge any amount and customers will always pay.

            end the federal guarantee so the market dictates the risk lenders are willing to take on and price their loans accordingly. Then education prices have no option but to come down because otherwise, colleges will have priced themselves out of the market.

        • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          "Yes it doesn't touch the universities one way or another..."

          Yes it does. Because this sends the message to those considering whether they want to take on this debt that sooner or later something will be worked out to get them out of it too. That means more people making that choice and the proceeds go to the universities.

      • A bigger problem is that Congress will be less willing to fund student loans in the future now that they have turned into handouts rather than loans.

        Well... good. If more government 'loans' is leading to an increasing price in college costs, then maybe it's time for government to get out of that business.

    • by e065c8515d206cb0e190 ( 1785896 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @07:13AM (#63965258)
      It's buying votes alright. Which is bad. In my book, not as bad as emptying the SPR by half to buy the midterms. Talk about weakening the country when world affairs are the most volatile they've been in 30+ years. (And for the soon to be offended "other side": Yeah, I know, Trump didn't do better, but he's not president now.)
      • What's even funnier is that those votes that he so dearly bought (from students) are the same ones that he's losing right now by supporting Israel (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/biden-polling-israel-palestine-gaza-hamas-war-youth.html). That's why votes buying should not be done (and a million other reasons).
        • Uh, no? Remember, it's the students who are supporting Hamas/Palestinians, and only some of them. The alumni are the ones who support Israel more. And they're the ones who might have student loan debt getting paid off...

          The current students are unlikely to see their loans forgiven.

        • Holy crap, your left-wing press is positively nazi! It's hard to find a more all-blame-on-one-side war (with Russian actions being the only real contender), and yet you have a supposedly serious news site going all RT-like.

          With right-wing also being insane, I'm really afraid of what's going on in politics on your side of the pond.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Instead of forgiving student loans and shifting the burden to everyone instead of those who agreed to the loans,

      How do you propose the loans be paid off? As the old saying goes you can't get blood from a stone.

      • by kenh ( 9056 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @09:56AM (#63965700) Homepage Journal

        Why can't college-educated people get jobs to pay back their loans? The argument I hear frequently is that unless we pay-off student loans, we'll have a generation of Americans that can't afford to buy a home or start a family. It's not that they can't pay their loan payments, it's that they can't pay for their loans and buy a house.

        What did these people think when they borrowed $40-60,000? Didn't they understand what was involved in paying off those loans?

        I put a lot of the blame on politicians that gave every student the ability to borrow tens of thousands of dollars to study anything they wanted to, and said "everyone should go to college" , but I also put a lot of blame on the parents and teachers that encouraged this behavior.

        • by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @10:26AM (#63965824) Homepage Journal

          What did these people think when they borrowed $40-60,000? Didn't they understand what was involved in paying off those loans?

          Consider that they were high school students when they started college. Then consider the state of education in our high schools. Odds are they truly didn't. Plus, you have colleges producing shiny pamphlets basically going "don't worry about all this debt, you'll get a great job!"

          Compared to previous generations of college graduates:
          1. This generation is deeper in debt with student loans. My dad's generation often had debt, but it was relatively small amounts. These days it can be closer to the price of a house.
          2. The pay increase from graduating college is less than before. While the business that wanted to pay minimum wage to have somebody distribute the mail while requiring a graduate degree is something of a meme, truth is the pay of college grads has stagnated
          3. Because relatively speaking, everybody and their aunt* are getting college degrees, it's no longer the assurance that you'll get a job at all.
          4. Other expenses have gone up as well, relative to pay - house, car, healthcare, etc...

          It's a difficult deal, and yes, "everyone should go to college" is a big part of the problem. If we had like half the college graduates, businesses would just have to accept that college grads are a premium employee, and not require them for everything. This would get people into the workforce faster, without 4+ years of accumulating debt.
          *More women are getting degrees these days than men.

        • They took advice from authority figures that it didn’t matter what they studied in college and they can just pay back their loans like magic. When I was in high school they called an assembly where one of the teachers gave us the expert protip to take easy classes and use our flawless GPA to get into a famous college instead of enduring the pain of hard classes.

          Just lol at some chump trying to get into UofM when geometry is his highest math class and just lol the fuck out of that fool if he did when

        • Why can't college-educated people get jobs to pay back their loans?

          Wages have not kept up with the current day cost of living. Rent has doubled in a few years along with grocery prices.

          Run your old tuition and living expenses through the inflation calculator and you’ll understand why.

    • by ranton ( 36917 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @08:05AM (#63965346)

      Biden doesn't have the power to fix the root of the problem, that responsibility lies on Congress. Biden is just handling what he has the authority to fix. Massive student loan burdens for college doesn't make much more sense than massive student loan burdens for a high school education, given how beneficial a college education is to the US economy. Everyone needs to be pitching in to fix this, not just the President.

      • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

        Biden doesn't have the power to fix the root of the problem, that responsibility lies on Congress. Biden is just handling what he has the authority to fix.

        No, if Biden had the authority to forgive student loans, he would have just done so (and the 6-3 Supreme Court decision tells me that he probably doesn't).
        Maybe that's an old fashioned view, but why don't presidents even try to go to Congress before attempting to enact major policy changes?

    • For all those who complain about forgiving loans. Why aren't you also complaining about the $793 Billion in PPP loans of which the vast majority are being forgiven.
      A large amount of that was pure fraud. How many students do you think committed fraud when they took out their loans?
      I know people who have been defrauded by their servicers who have improperly handled interest and payments as well as placing loans in unfavorable repayment plans.
      Also realize that some of this is to address the almost complete

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 30, 2023 @08:33AM (#63965418)

        For all those who complain about forgiving loans. Why aren't you also complaining about the $793 Billion in PPP loans of which the vast majority are being forgiven.

        Because unlike student loans, the legislation which created the PPP loan program specifically included loan forgiveness, provided certain criteria was met by the borrowers. It's explained right here [wikipedia.org] in the Loan forgiveness section.

        Completely different thing, and this argument keeps getting rehashed by people who don't know anything and don't bother to do a modicum of research to avoid sounding ignorant.

      • They both suck. The difference is PPP loans had forgiveness clauses as part of the agreement. The student loans didn't, and Biden is stretching or exceeding his authority trying to forgive them. That part should bother you no matter how you feel about loan forgiveness.
    • student loans need bankruptcy and then the schools and banks will skin in the game

    • Instead of forgiving student loans and shifting the burden to everyone instead of those who agreed to the loans, Biden should be focused on preventing these universities from milking students for so much money with so little value in return. Biden is simply buying votes from some instead of proposing laws that would end the cash grab and protect future generations. By extension, Biden is also giving the universities a mega cash handout to continue what they are doing to the next class, and the class after that, etc.

      But Biden has to live in our current world while eyeballing re-election. And as much as I hate having to look at his logic on shit like this, it is logical. If he forces colleges to stop milking students for every cent? He'll lose school administrators, who will bitch to high heaven until their alumni are lost as well, and likely a portion of the students as well, who are, by and large, brainwashed into believing school funding is far more important to them than education or their own financial state. By fo

    • You're operating under a common, but mistaken impression that University costs have increased rapidly. But actually tuition has increased less than inflation.

      Sure the sticker price has increased a crazy amount, but the average amount paid has actually decreased. Scholarships and bursaries have increased more than tuition has increased, so the average paid is actually down.

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/d... [forbes.com]

      The real lesson that needs to be spread is that nobody should be paying taking massive loans to pay

    • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      Establish a means test for repayment. If you have no prospects of making that money back, you don't get a loan. If your family has no prospects of paying that money back, you don't get a loan.

      This is how it worked before, roughly, 1998, and we didn't have a student loan debt crisis before then. Also, the average cost of tuition has increased by roughly 50% in adjusted dollars since then. Before that point it was increasing, roughly, on par with inflation. If you are a university and you know students will b

    • Biden is simply buying votes...

      By pissing off every other hard-working American that took out loans on homes, sold investments, tapped retirement funds, and/or sacrificed many days and nights working second jobs to put their children through college and did NOT take out a now very special kind of loan, all because the concept of selling worthless degrees to gullible customers is simply Too Big To Fail?

      Hell of a way to 'buy' those votes. You'd have better luck purposefully dismantling a border and handing millions of immigrants a one-wa

    • by Dan667 ( 564390 )
      I think it is hilarious the comments any time there is any less than perfect government program to help regular people. You know what people don't complain about? Huge substitutes and bailouts to massive rich companies that do not need those subsidies and should be taken over by the government or allowed to fail. The pittance going to regular people is nothing compared to that. I don't disagree that universities need to be stopped from these crazy tuition rates, but the real money is in subsidies and ba
    • by Marful ( 861873 )

      You're highlighting the crux of the student loan / college issue.

      Prior to 2010(IIRC?) colleges were heavily subsidized directly by both the state and the federal government. CA colleges for instnace averaged 120~% of a student's tuition in subsidies from the state and federal government. (I.e. if a student's tuition cost $30k, the school received an additional $36k from the government.)

      Then Obama changed student financial aid, raising the amount to $75k (IIRC) and then both the state and fed cut almost

  • by Craefter ( 71540 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @06:47AM (#63965212)

    Am I missing something here? The study you absolved (or not) could not get you a job which earned enough money to pay back your student loan. Also, you chose a school which asks an enormous amount of money so they can have classes which are useless on the job market.
    Now this all has to be paid for by the tax paying population who did choose a solid career path. Doesn't sound really fair.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by EmagGeek ( 574360 )

      You're missing the point of Liberal Arts colleges and the Ivy League altogether.

    • by ranton ( 36917 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @08:14AM (#63965362)

      You are missing something here. The problem is that we make students pay for most of their college education in the first place. The tax payers should have been paying far more than $127 billion of extra spending on post-secondary education over the past few decades. This is chump change compared to the social and economic benefit of more Americans becoming college educated.

      We need to reign in post-secondary education costs and massively increase the percentage of those costs paid for by state and local governments, but we also need to remove the massive student-loan burden we have been putting on our children for the past few decades.

    • these loans are usurious. The majority of these loans are people who have been paying on them for years, sometimes decades. The loan companies agreed that after X years of payments they'd be forgiven, but they lied about that or hid that from the borrowers. The loans were fraudulent at that point.

      There were also some loans from skeezy private schools that lied about job placement rates and salaries in there. People, especially kids, do not make good decisions under pressure.

      You're 18, you have littl
      • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

        these loans are usurious. The majority of these loans are people who have been paying on them for years, sometimes decades. The loan companies agreed that after X years of payments they'd be forgiven, but they lied about that or hid that from the borrowers.

        You might be right when loans were opened up to a significantly larger portion of the population in the late 1990s. Since then, there have been documentaries, news articles, books, blog posts, web sites, TV news pieces, radio programs, and entire podcasts about how onerous student loans are. At this point, if anyone doesn't understand how student loans work, without an even cursory glance at a Wikipedia article or financial web site, it's not the loan company's fault.

        Here's the first thing that comes up in

    • Doesn't sound really fair.

      "Fair" isn't exactly the word we should be using to describe the mass harm that has been done. Let's start with a criminal label while taxpayers easily justify the reasons to redistribute the billions sitting in university coffers.

      After that, we should institute separation of Education and Politics. Universities either accept this separation, or they will not be recognized as an accredited institution. Degrees will be viewed as invalid by employers. You're there to get an education, not an indoctrinatio

    • the vast majority of these loans are 15-20 years old and the principle as well as a healthy profit have already been paid long since.

      As for who should pay for college, the people getting the benefit should. You. And everyone else in America. Because we all benefit from an educated population.

      When you're 60 on there's nobody to do the minor heart surgery you need to live though, well, ask yourself then who's gonna pay for it. I guess you could try flying to a country that values higher education. I h
      • the vast majority of these loans are 15-20 years old and the principle as well as a healthy profit have already been paid long since.

        By YOUR metric just how many homes out there have been paid off, and yet millions are still paying on a principle overshadowed by interest long ago?

        You know, cause 15-20 years old is plenty enough profit on a 30-year mortgage...

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @08:35AM (#63965420)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Thank you for being a responsible debtor by paying off your student loans so you can pay off mine too!

      hah financial competence never goes unpunished. If you know how to manage your money then you're either a scumbag worthy of only the guillotine or someone's ATM card.

  • is that these loans were fraudulent. The students in question had been paying on them for years, sometimes decades, and in many if not most cases the interest payments had far exceeded the original loan and even a reasonable profit.

    Under the law the students were already eligible for the loans to be forgiven and the loan companies shouldn't be collecting anymore. Through a series of tricks and outright lies they forced people to keep paying.

    And this is just the bulk of the loans. There's also a *ton
    • no they weren't fraudulent and had easier and more flexible terms than other loans.

      Irresponsible losers don't take responsibility for their lives or plan and then saddle the rest of us with the bill.

  • And not like we took underwater interpretative dance as the major.

  • by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @10:44AM (#63965870)

    Government loans which you pay off through the tax system; you pay 10% of your income above a certain level. Those who benefit from college get to pay them off, those who got fooled into useless courses don't suffer.

  • This sucks (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GregMmm ( 5115215 )

    Thanks, from us who saved money for our kids going to college. I could have a really nice shop, traveled, etc. Well I guess the joke's on me.

    • Thanks, from us who saved money for our kids going to college. I could have a really nice shop, traveled, etc. Well I guess the joke's on me.

      and the best part? It doesn't even matter. In 5 years these people are going to be up to their eyeballs in cc debt, getting money for free doesn't make you any more competent. No more student loan debt just means more space on the credit card... for now.

  • If you just inject 130B dollars into an economy, it has to go somewhere. On one hand you have the FED keeping the reference rate high and on the other you're just throwing gas at the problem.
  • Anyone outside US know of students getting a loan to study? Or a job to pay for it?

    Around here, studying IS the student's job. It's unpaid, but sure also is an investment in their future. As parents, we pay for the duration of the (successful) years like we pay for our kids when they're in high-school.

    Seems to me that student loans -I might be mistaken, hence my asking-, like gun violence or climate denial, is, quite prominently, an American thing.

  • by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Monday October 30, 2023 @01:19PM (#63966350) Journal

    Do I get a rebate?

  • This just teaches financial irresponsibility! I had tons of student loans and paid all mine off. Do I get a REFUND from what I paid out. F! NO!

    This is just teaching people to be like the government, rack up lots of debt and not have to pay it!

    The people getting loans forgiven (they shouldn't be!) should have to pay INCOME TAX on the full amount of the loan forgiven as INCOME! They should NOT be allowed to just rack up debt and then not have to pay it.

    As someone else mentioned - this is just buying v

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