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Student debt is the second largest form of consumer credit after mortgages; currently, more than 45 million people owe nearly $1.7 trillion, meaning that people can spend years paying off that debt, depending on their means, creating economic, gender and racial inequality within the community.
In recent years, the Biden administration has attempted to water down and expand student debt forgiveness programs put in place under the Obama administration, achieving some success in the process but continually facing legal challenges from Republican states that have stalled a sweeping program introduced in 2021.
Borrowers have been paying for a decade or two, or have worked public service jobs to try to pay off their debt, but the loan servicing landscape is complex and riddled with regulations that are confusing to many.
Every 26 seconds, one of those student loan borrowers defaults on their loan, experts said during a briefing held by Ethnic Media Services.
Adam Minsky, a student loan attorney, explained the current situation with the Biden administration, which, while it has promoted several programs to support payments, has also left few options for others due to having key points that are unclear for students.
Approximately $53 million has been approved through several different initiatives, one of the largest of which was the Reckoning and IR program, a temporary document that allows lenders to offer a 30- or 35-year repayment plan depending on their income; however, this program has not been well organized or documented, Minsky said.
About 1 million borrowers have already received enough credit to get them past that 20- or 25-year mark, allowing their loans to be forgiven, but that program is set to end in the coming months.
Another change is to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, or PSLF, a program that provides relief for those who commit to working for nonprofit or government organizations at the federal, local, or state level; this would reduce repayment to 10 years, but the program has very complex rules and poor oversight, so it has not been properly managed.
The Biden administration implemented new regulations that went into effect in July of last year, which do several things to improve PSLF, offering more flexibility in repayment periods and eliminating some things like consolidation, which went from 7,000 approvals in 2020 to 900,000 as of last month's count.
There is also a program for people with disabilities who cannot obtain employment due to medical conditions. This program came into effect last July and makes it easier for students to access employment.
In addition, Minsky added, the administration created another program called SAVE, based on income, which is the most accessible program and already has 8 million borrowers enrolled.
Michele Shepard Zampini, senior director of college affordability at TICAS, explained that since March 2020, borrowers did not have to pay their student debts in the way they do now, because with the pandemic came a great economic flexibility that students had not had, and the administration wanted to provide them with some relief in the face of the crisis that was being experienced.
Shepard said that payments are often very high and people often have to choose between paying essentials, such as rent, food, rent, or other necessary services before paying off their debt.
He also said that a viable option is to lower the cost of these payments so that families do not have to choose between one or the other.
92 to 93 percent of students have federal student debt and the rest is through private loans from banks, credit unions or some other, while 75 percent of students attend a public university, so implementing a good federal program would be helping the majority of the student population.
Virginia Brown, a recently retired mental health counselor and social worker, said she was able to move closer to family after receiving $325,000 in student loan forgiveness last year.
Brown explained that public funding goes up and down, depending on the state.
Experts point out that there is a great inequality among undocumented students, since they cannot access student financial aid, which includes student loans, while only those who have a social security number are eligible.
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