U.S. President Joe Biden plans to announce on Wednesday that his administration has approved an additional $9 billion in student debt relief for 125,000 borrowers, the White House said.

Biden has said he will pursue new measures to provide student loan relief to Americans after the Supreme Court blocked his plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.

The president’s announcement, planned for 1 p.m. EDT at the White House, will bring the total approved debt cancellation by the Biden administration to $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million Americans, the White House said.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Just cap the interest rate

      at zero. If the loan is risk free it shouldn’t be profitable, to do anything else is to funnel public money into the banks.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        At 0% interest, no bank would offer loans, because it would literally just be them losing money managing loans they make nothing from.

        • jadegear@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Zero percent and govt covers operating costs with a stipend per loan. Granted figuring out the rate to pay would be a task, and keeping that from being a gouge itself… but better than passing it along to borrowers.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yeah if you give them a way to turn some sort of profit I think this idea could have some legs. Even something small like OP costs plus a flat thousand or so per loan processed could still keep the game running.

            Loan values would still keep going up, but the price would be much more understandable to those taking them out.

            • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              IMHO, college tuition and student loans should be handled the way that the healthcare marketplace of the ACA should’ve been handled: less carrot, more stick.

              To the banks/insurance companies:

              “If you want to continue to do business with the American public, you must offer competitively priced insurance packages/low or zero interest loans for education on a government run portal. If you don’t serve the public in this way, you’ll be prohibited from accessing the American people as a market for your for-profit business.”

              Honestly, the American Consumer Is the greatest driver of global economic growth and domestic economic stability in the world, and the American government’s single most valuable economic asset. That the government chooses, through its policy decisions to exploit and abuse this asset rather than protect it, grow it, and prosper alongside it speaks to who’s really calling the shots.

              Sure, it would piss off the hard-line “free market” advocates, but small businesses pay taxes at a level that impacts their profitability in a way that larger corporations simply don’t. I feel it’s more than fair to level that playing field by some small degree by locking access to the American consumer behind the condition of having to contribute to the betterment of that market.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That requires legislation and we do not currently have a House that can even consider legislation

    • krakenx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Biden had a really good plan. Zero interest as long as you pay at least something, and the payment being as low as $1 with a sliding scale based on income.

      It’s more fair than just forgiveness to people without loans since the debt isn’t eliminated. I’m personally fine with eliminating the debt to have a more educated society, but a lot of people aren’t, and that’s a good middle ground.