i meet so many old people under the delusion ‘i suffered, so should you’. its so weird as many will then talk about their church in the next breath.
Yea, I went to a relatively cheap college. Tuition was about 8k a year when I started and 12k when I graduated, this didn’t include living expenses or housing. I worked on average 30 hours a week and full time during the summers. I left with about 20k in loans. I worked and saved while living at my parents home and paid them off in about 3 years. I was lucky to be in a position to do this, all the while making less than 15 an hour.
Then a few years later when there was talk of people getting their debt forgiven, my mother says " that’s not fair, you worked hard to get out of it, they should too." And I stood there in shock, thinking who cares if I worked hard to pay off my loans, it doesn’t mean others should have to. I don’t want others to go through what I sacrificed if they don’t have to.
I didn’t pay a dime (other than living expenses) for my tuition. Fuck everyone who is against debt forgiveness. I worked hard to become a software engineer, but do you think I could have done it while working full time at the same time just to pay tuition? Even if I didn’t work during college, I would have had to live the college quality living for several years before I would have made enough to pay tuition and living.
Education is the single most important thing for a society to progress and everyone to do better, live better, and create better. Anyone against it? Tells you all you need to know. They benefit from an uneducated population, that struggles on low wages for their own personal profit.
“Okay, but does making it easier for them somehow lessen MY accomplishments? Is that how you think? Jesus christ mom.”
Yeah, I worked 60h a week as a full time student to get through school without loans, and no one should have to do that.
old people
it’s ok. you can say boomers
It ain’t just old people either.
stupid people exist in every age group. but it’s to be expected from kids-- not from grown ass adults
Yeah, I forgot people think anyone over the age of 30 is a baby boomer these days
They really should be touting this more to get young people out to vote. This is a very clear division among young people who want/deserve relief, and which party is trying to give it and which is doing everything they can to stop it.
This is such an easy win for Democrats and yet…
If I were in charge of any of their campaigning I’d also hammer reproductive rights, weed, and healthcare. Instead it looks like the Dems are going to keep getting cornered on the economy and Israel.
If Biden told the supreme court to go fuck themselves and forgave all student loan debt they would care.
This isn’t even a drop in the bucket of the total student loan debt in this country
You’re right, they shouldn’t even talk about it at all unless they can clear 100% of the debt. It’s all or nothing.
Jesus Christ, it’s no wonder Democrats always lose. This is their fickle voting base.
ah yes, biden telling 1/3 of our government (who happen to be mostly trump’s cronies) to fuck themselves can’t end badly
we do need such grand, sweeping changes to help our country, but unfortunately all we can manage are these baby steps, which are still important for progress
It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve just ignored the supreme court
Yeah, people decry authoritarianism, then immediately propose authoritarian solutions. Just a “different” authority.
No thanks.
Idk, it feels manipulative to me. All they’ve done here is follow through on existing policy. I have higher standards for being impressed than doing what you’re required to do, even if others before you failed to do so.
Proving that you can and do follow through on existing policy is still a good thing to do.
Sure, but that’s the bare minimum. That’s not going to inspire apathetic voters. Claiming credit for a Democratic Congress / George W Bush admin era piece of legislation is not very impressive.
Especially since the Democrats passed it with a 49+2 / 49 majority in the Senate (and filibustering still very much a thing), so it’s a stark contrast to all the stuff they claimed wasn’t possible during the Biden admin because they simply didn’t have a strong enough majority in the Senate even without a Republican president. I know times are different now, but it kind of paints a circle around the lack of legislative backbone this administration has had.
I don’t really care. I don’t necessarily agree, but even if I did, I don’t care at this point.
Well… I’m responding to you saying they should use this to get young people to vote. I’m saying that’s not a good idea because it’s manipulative and only serves to highlight all the ways they haven’t followed through on student loan debt, instead they keep touting tiny band aids and legislation signed into law by Bush Jr.
Almost feels like you’re saying that if people do the exact job you put them there to do, that’s not good enough for them to keep their jobs.
It is, of course. So they get my vote.
Uh, no. That’s pretty clearly not what I’m saying.
I’m saying I expect my government to do more than simply follow through on 17 year old laws and pretend like that’s some amazing achievement. And student loans in particular have been abysmally handled by Biden, both in his Senate career and his failed promises to the populace when running for president.
“But the Supreme Court”: yes, but they were a known obstacle and he still chose to delay any attempt for two years in order to try to double dip, which still ultimately failed. He knowingly left the people with crushing student loan debt to suffer while waiting for a politically expedient time to even try. And he failed anyway, so why wait?
Well we’ve got two options. Vote for them or not. Which would you recommend people do?
Vote, but don’t be complacent. The Democrats do not adequately work for the needs of the people.
Donate or volunteer for local progressives during the primaries, fight like hell to make your government fight for you. And do not accept mediocrity as a victory.
You are aiming too high. Simply getting people to vote is already a lot because our general election turnout is shameful. Beyond that, primary voting turnout is like abysmal, I think 10% or so last I checked.
Getting primary election turnout up will make the biggest difference in party attitude for the least effort expended.
Being nit picky and pedantic will just get people to grumble and move on to other things.
Be short, to the point, and make the effort you are asking for to be so negligible that people will feel compelled to do that much.
Otherwise you just defeat your own causes by introducing friction that bleeds momentum and energy. Pessimism isn’t effective at galvanizing the left. The left thrives on optimism.
I agree the left thrives on optimism, which is why I’m especially unhappy with the Democratic Party in the last 10 years. They’ve done absolutely nothing to make people optimistic. Instead of leaning into the enthusiasm that Bernie drummed up, they played dirty and launched a smear campaign. And they’ve followed that up with 8 years of nothing but “you have to vote for us because what else are you gonna do?”
They call milquetoast achievements like “we didn’t fail to follow through on policy passed 17 years ago” great accomplishments and think that’s good enough to inspire optimism? Give me a break.
This is a program that existed for a very long time.
The problem with it is when it was set up, some idiot put the loan companies in charge. And thru intentional incompetence most people didn’t get forgiveness when they should and the interest kept climbing for years.
Biden had us pay the illegally charged interest rather than fight it.
So we drastically overpaid for forgiveness borrowers should have had long ago.
It’s good they finally got it, but so many more could have been forgiven for the same amount of money if we didn’t pay all that extra interest.
John Oliver did an episode on it a couple months ago, maybe last season?
This is a program that existed for a very long time
7 years since the first person became eligible is a ‘very long time?’
The problem with it is when it was set up, some idiot put the loan companies in charge. And thru intentional incompetence most people didn’t get forgiveness when they should and the interest kept climbing for years.
So we’re just making shit up now?
The department of education made the determination of who fulfilled the criteria to have their loans forgiven. Forgiveness was never based around distributing a set amount of money, but on completeting a specific payment regiment for 10 years with a qualifying employment category.
The first year anyone was eligible for forgiveness was 2017. Do you remember who was president in 2017? Who he put in charge of the department of education? There was a deliberate effort by the Trump administration to sabatoge the program by denying approval for forgiveness on the basis of any minor technical or clerical deficiency they could come up with. Some months literally nobody got approved. Now also consider the kinds of people Davos hired for every role she could within the department. And now the kind of people they hired.
And here you sit, just another asshole blaming Biden and Democrats for mess their predecessors went out of their way to create, because they didn’t clean it up instantly and perfectly.
Hey just quick question…
Who set up the current college loan system and set it so that
none ofits nearly but not impossible that debt could be forgiven even after bankruptcy?That was decades ago so it must have been some predecessor right? Not someone still sitting in a position of power right?
Yeah, you want to litigate the entire FSLP and talk about the whole picture on how it’s affected education and the economy over the last three decades? I’m not sure I have time to write several doctoral theses and a nonfiction book today, however maybe we can start with the fact that student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy. Yes, the courts use a more stringent standard than Chapter 7 and it leaves a lot of discretion to individual judges, but it is not outlawed outright.
//edit: Poster attempted to ‘correct’ their misinformation with more misinformation.
Who set up the current college loan system and set it so that
none ofits nearly but not impossible that debt could be forgiven even after bankruptcy?The vast majority of borrowers seeking discharge continue to benefit from the guidance. In cases decided by the courts from November 2022 through March, 98% have provided debt relief through full or partial discharge. And the overall number of court judgments providing full or partial discharge have continued to increase, with the number of such judgments over the last six months exceeding the number of judgments for the preceding 12 months.
It add nuance to the conversation that Democrats have done nothing wrong and only been pushing to fix what other older people and Republicans have done.
Avoiding the reality of Biden specifically creating that policy and supporting it for decades leaves opening for people absolutely to get upset and call shenanigans.The reality of the matter is that people have very little recourse for handling college debt unless they are literally starving to death and that has been a supported position for pretty much all members of the electorate except for the fringes for decades now.
You call someone else out on making incorrect statements while making them yourself and it becomes apparent it’s just ideology at the base not reality.
Edit: and for federal loans not private andup until Biden re-enabled the public forgiveness program was considered a near impossible task to get a judge to agree to. Steps in the right direction but more akin to finally committing to the promises already made and failed for decades. It’s gonna sour opinion.It add nuance to the conversation that Democrats have done nothing wrong and only been pushing to fix what other older people and Republicans have done.
I didn’t say this. Democrats do things wrong, like all the time. Maybe the misunderstanding is my fault for omitting the article ‘a’ before ‘mess’ by mistake near the end of my original post. Mea Culpa.
But in regards to the subject of this thread, that absolutely is what is happening. The Biden administration is cleaning up a mess Republicans went out of their way to create with their deliberate mishandling of the PSLF program. Blaming Biden because he can’t wave away the consequences of Republicans malfeasance is exactly what the person I was replying to did.
so that none of that debt could be forgiven even after bankruptcy?
The reality of the matter is that people have very little recourse for handling college debt unless they are literally starving to death
movinggoalposts.gif
I didn’t say it was easy, I said it wasn’t literally outlawed. Which it is not. There may even be good reasons to make it more difficult for young adults just out of school, without any assets and low financial stakes, to discharge the large amounts of unsecured debt we’re helping them take on. They were right to be concerned about it. So they drew a line. It ended up being in the wrong place and it needs to be redrawn. Happens to the best of us.
You call someone else out on making incorrect statements while making them yourself and it becomes apparent it’s just ideology at the base not reality.
That’s rich coming from a person who opened by lying about the impossibility of discharging student loan debt.
I didn’t say this.
And here you sit, just another asshole blaming Biden and Democrats for mess their predecessors went out of their way to create, because they didn’t clean it up instantly and perfectly.
Its not their predecessors if its the same person.
And it was that all private student loans were stripped of their bankruptcy protections. Federal loansAll loans were given an out but its very difficult. But the amount of private loans exploded and those couldn’t be cleared at all.That’s it. The final truth.You thinking that it’s right is indication of exactly what side you already agree with.
And it was that all private student loans were stripped of their bankruptcy protections. Federal loans were given an out but its very difficult. But the amount of private loans exploded and those couldn’t be cleared at all. That’s it. The final truth.
For too long, a myth has persisted that student loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. The myth is not true because, in fact, student loans can be discharged bankruptcy. We have seen the Department of Education take important steps to ensure that bankruptcy relief is available to federal student loan borrowers. It is vital that private student loan borrowers also receive the relief the Bankruptcy Code provides —and that loan owners, lenders, servicers, and debt collectors honor that relief when a bankruptcy judge discharges a consumer’s debts.
Straight from the fucking CFPB. Stop repeating lies that harm people by making them believe they don’t have options that they do.
Its not their predecessors if its the same person.
The Biden administration was not running the Department of Education from 2017-2020.
I don’t know why you’re having such a hard time with this. I’m not talking about everything the democrats and Joe Biden ever tried to do in relation to students loans. I’m not talking about every mess ever made. I’m talking about their handling of the PSLF program. You know, the thing the thread is about.
You thinking that it’s right is indication of exactly what side you already agree with.
Saying I said it was right, when I explicitly said it was wrong. Well done.
So they drew a line. It ended up being in the wrong place and it needs to be redrawn.
… Isn’t that entirely a different issue with just a similar end result that’s also being worked on by progressive Democrats, krauerking at lemy.lol
I’d say it’s completely related since it was a form of debt release that was alternative and longer existing as a form that was removed. It left no outlets for freeing oneself of specific debt and only that one.
So if, I take away your food but promise to give you ingredients to make your own but then don’t do that. I’d be blamed for starving you.
And actually not being worked on since the Democratic party did not regret adding in that forced debt. They like the revenue it brings in for their private donors.
They changed it for federal loans only and it’s still considered nearly impossible to get the filing submitted that the debt is literally ruining their lives.
7 years is a very long time for that person. And a lot of wasted money
To be fair, it’s a little disingenuous to start counting from the time the first person became eligible, as all the rules had to be in place for over a decade prior to that.
You’re framing it as a program that’s been around for 7 years, when the reality is that it’s been 17.
Don’t disagree with most of your points, but the program itself has been around for quite a while.
What’s disingenuous is Givesomefucks out right lying. But semantics are more your flavor I suppose.
No, it’s disingenuous to count the time a program was, by design, inoperable as functional because it existed on paper.
When does the dam exist? On the day the blueprints are drawn up or on the day it starts filling with water?
The word I would contest is “inoperable.”
The system is more than just a retrospective yes or no after 10 years. You have to work with the DoEd to submit paperwork from your employer to make sure they qualify. You have to work with the DoEd to make sure the type of payments or deferments you’re doing are qualified. Etc.
There have been government employees actively working with people on this for the whole of the 17 years. This is a program that has, in fact, “been around for a long time” in a meaningful way.
Yes, the Trump Administration did a good awful job in trying to intentionally eff it up. But people were in fact able to get through it.
Right now, I know several people who are just a few payments away from being able to qualify, but can’t due to payment freezes with the Mohela cutover and all the legal stuff going on with it. Which, to be clear, I’m not blaming on the Biden administration. But it isn’t like the program has made much meaningful headway in the past 4 years either.
And it seems like this is the easier battle to win than general student loan forgiveness. Expand PSLF. Reduce the term to 5 years and reduce the administrative burdens and overhead. Allow a wider range of zero-cost-payment deferments to count as “qualified payments” towards the total payment number needed.
These would be expansions on policy that have been unchallenged for the past 17 years. That passed through both houses of Congress. This is an easy win that would help ease the burden of millions of Americans. Especially teachers who are cripplingly underpaid and often require a masters degree.
Agreed. If talking about “when the blueprints are drawn up” then 17 is way too short as it’d been in the works and planned for even longer. 17 years ago is when things started operating, even if the first payouts didn’t happen for another ten years.
s a little disingenuous to start counting from the time the first person became eligible
No it absolutely isn’t.
There’s rarely any using trying to respond with logic to a comment filled with insults…
I explicitly blamed the people who set it up, and that account went off about how I’m blaming Biden.
Logic didn’t get them to their current opinion, and logic won’t help them understand their misunderstanding, they’ll just keep throwing insults and not understanding.
I just report and block those accounts, makes Lemmy a lot more civil when you don’t see the worst
Dude. You literally blamed Biden in your first comment.
and that account went off about how I’m blaming Biden.
Biden had us pay the illegally charged interest rather than fight it.
I guess someone else wrote his name in there.
Charging borrowers interest is not illegal. Denying participation in government programs over trivial errors is not illegal. Declining to earnestly help people who are eligible rectify their deficient applications is not illegal. Picking a fight you are going to lose on the merits is not smart. Especially when it detracts time and effort away from the much more immediate and necessary goal of helping the large number of people who are still paying.
I explicitly blamed the people who set it up, and that account went off about how I’m blaming Biden.
I agree with you. There’s some nuance that’s being missed. Obviously Biden had nothing to do with a program that got signed into law in 2007.
You (and John Oliver, who’s rarely wrong) said that Biden paid the extra interest - which shouldn’t have existed if things were done right from the start. And this means less money for other loan forgiveness. That’s what Biden is being blamed for. Paying extra interest. Nothing else.
The catch here is that maybe Biden couldn’t have cancelled or reversed that interest without new legislation, which would be tough in these times due to the strong MAGA hold on the GOP half of Congress right now. Hence he had to work within the framework of existing laws and prioritized ending the suffering of his constituents first. On that basis, I figure it’s probably the right call overall, even if it means some scummy for-profits got a little bit fatter.
But the other commenter said,
And here you sit, just another asshole blaming Biden and Democrats for mess their predecessors went out of their way to create, because they didn’t clean it up instantly and perfectly.
Which is just highly inaccurate, as it was only one tiny aspect of the cleanup that was being questioned.
Its really hard to be supportive and praise someone for finally plugging back in grandmas life support after they purposefully unplugged it to charge their headphones.
The problem with it is when it was set up, some idiot put the loan companies in charge. And thru intentional … most people didn’t get forgiveness when they should
I’ve been following folks who’ve been stuck here. Being told they were in a forgiveness plan or having an eligible employer, only to be told at the last minute that nope they gotta start all over again. (Luckily this was fixed and those folks got their second chance, but it never should have happened at all.)
some idiot put the loan companies in charge. And thru intentional … most people didn’t get forgiveness when they should
Why is it so hard to expect a for profit company to actually comply with the law here? That’s all that was needed to prevent a series of tragedies from happening.
Cool. Do everyone now.
Does that include school teachers?
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