GOP pitches student loan repayment as Americans struggle to keep up with bills

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Republicans say it’s long past time for millions of people to pay down their overdue student debt — a message they are trying to send to Americans already stressed about the cost of food, health care and housing.

After the Biden administration let borrowers put off their bills during the pandemic-era payment pauses and canceled billions of dollars in student debt, Republicans are taking steps to collect. Within the first few months of the Trump administration, the Education Department moved to forcibly recover payments on student loans.

But the GOP’s messaging to resume payments is on a collision course with economic reality: Nearly 12 million borrowers are behind on their loans.

The Trump administration has already retreated from some of its efforts to collect on student loan debt, including plans last year to seize Social Security benefits from borrowers in default. And in a surprising reversal, the Education Department said last week it is pausing its plans to nab wages and tax refunds from people with past-due student loans.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/gop-pitches-student-loan-repayment-105500547.html

After forgiving COVID loans for so many businesses.

[Scrivener7]

1. And after ridiculing Biden's loan forgiveness program.

[snot]

2. We don't need to write off a lot of loans; what we need, for starters, is

to repeal the law that made it impossible for student debt to be discharged in bankruptcy.

Simply forgiving debt across the board doesn't just relieve the borrowers; it's also a windfall to lenders and loan guarantors and encourages them to keep facilitating un-repayable loans.

Other pieces of the problem include the withdrawal of state funding for colleges, the proliferation of low-quality, for-profit colleges, and the conservative takeover of many existing higher-quality colleges, all of which have resulted in higher administrative overheads and otherwise driven up the costs for college degrees, converting higher education into another looting operation.

[Johnny2X2X]

3. The blew up the repayment options Biden created

Repayment options that made sense and were realistic for millions. They raised the interest rates on loans for millions of borrowers.

They need to bring back Biden's repayment plans or millions are going to be screwed. And millions of people right now are making payments, but their balances continue to rise because the interest is now so high.

[Greg_In_SF]

4. Actually, student loan interest

rates just went down from 6.53% to 6.39%.

Interest rates are determined each spring based on the yield of the 10-year Treasury Note.

[Johnny2X2X]

5. For new loans

I had old loans at much lower rates and they raised them to 6.39%.