Student Opinion: The Extension on Student Loan Repayments Should Lead to their Demise

via Getty Images
via Getty Images

By: Ariana Ceballos 

 

For years children have been told by educators and family members that higher education leads to a successful life. That claim ignores the fact that money is needed to achieve a higher education. Many students take out federal and private loans to afford their college educations, and it is these very financial decisions that prevent them from seeking higher education needed for their chosen career paths. 

 

Student loans worsen the lives of many students by applying a burden on them that they may have to live with for most of their adult lives. Because of this, President Biden should stop extending the pause on student loan repayments. He should forgive them and end the decades-long pressure among students and adults.

 

Since March 2020, people who have received federal student loans have not needed to repay loan providers under the CARES act passed by the Trump administration. President Biden extended the pause in January 2021 after Omicron emerged in the US, and it was expected to end on May 1. As of right now, the pause is held until August 31, 2022. These enacted pauses were a part of emergency COVID relief — as COVID is one of many things that prevent holders from making payments. While these pauses have been great and considerable in this time of need, officials should be aware that many holders depend on the cancellation of their loans.

 

However, as the recent focus is on student loans, it is important to note that federal student loan providers have been failing student borrowers long before the pandemic. NPR reports on the failures made by an affordable student loan program meant to help low-income borrowers. This program, called the income-driven repayment plan (IDR), is structured to help borrowers who are unable to make large payments every month. 

 

NPR’s investigation notes that borrowers with the lowest income are impacted the most by faults in the IDR. Based on internal documents from servicers, it was stated that “in a 2016 review, officials warned $0 IDR payments that qualify for forgiveness are not adequately tracked,” and people making these payments were reported to be “earning less than 150% of the federal poverty line.”

 

Representative Persis Yu of the Student Borrower Protection Center states that, “people with $0 payments are folks in financial distress with their payments not tracked” and were in “debt that they don’t owe.” Federal student loan providers are simply not helping borrowers or attempting to make things easier for them. This means that an executive order is needed to address this issue. 

 

In an article for Forbes, a representative for the Debt Collective described as “a debtor’s union advocating for student loan borrowers,” Braxton Brewington echoes that Biden should put an end to student debt as a solution to the problem. He stated, “Biden repeatedly touted plans to eliminate student debt on the campaign trail…at a time when costs for families are at a record high,” the pandemic mounted pressure on ordinary payments. I think this is a good idea because student loans are a constant threat to keeping stable finances, and many loan borrowers are adults who want to maintain their household. 

 

We are living in a time of great uncertainty with the pandemic and fears of inflation still lingering. What has remained constant is the extension of payments, keeping borrowers on their toes. After two years of deciding whether they should consider a financial plan that includes how to pay their student loans, if extensions keep happening, it signifies that student debt can be forgiven while not impacting much of the country’s economy. 

 

For a long time, student loan borrowers have suffered repaying their loans, shown through the failures of the federal level. If no changes are made to improve federal student loan providers, then student loans should be canceled. Borrowers should not be made to suffer by those who are obligated to help them through such an important process. After all, education is a need and the opportunity to achieve higher education should be accessible to everyone. 

 

Author

  • Jordan

    Jordan Varney received a masters from UC Davis in Psychology and a B.S. in Computer Science from Harvey Mudd. Varney is editor in chief of the Vanguard at UC Davis.

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11 comments

  1. For years children have been told by educators and family members that higher education leads to a successful life.

    Couldn’t get beyond that first sentence, as this is where the “problem” starts.

  2. Many students take out federal and private loans to afford their college educations, and it is these very financial decisions that prevent them from seeking higher education needed for their chosen career paths. 

    What does this mean?

  3. While these pauses have been great and considerable in this time of need, officials should be aware that many holders depend on the cancellation of their loans.

    What?  People took loans depending on them being canceled?

  4. If former students are struggling to pay their loans, that’s direct evidence that their costly education did not pay off their “investment” as much as they expected.

    Students and parents are being lied to, regarding the value of education (in general). At this point, it’s more of a cultural belief, in which they (themselves) perpetuate the lie.

    This belief also prevents young people from going into careers in which there actually is demand (e.g., blue collar work or business), and one in which it requires less time to be without an income.

     

  5. Much of student loans out there are exactly the same as sub-prime mortgages 15 years ago. Loans were given willy nilly to people who could never possibly pay them off in order to affect the oxymoron that is social engineering. Somebody gets stuck with the bill for the bailout. That would be the people who pay the most in taxes who are smart enough and successful enough to earn that kind of money.
    One person’s humble opinion.

    1.  Loans were given willy nilly to people who could never possibly pay them off in order to affect the oxymoron that is social engineering

      Untrue… they were given out as lenders had the gov’t backing them up for ‘defaults’, and most of the private lenders (banks, etc.) saw this as they could attract folk to take ‘no/low risk’ (to the lenders), possibly high profit… it was NOT “social engineering” at its true roots… it was ‘opportunism’ by the bank industry… know the true history… I have seen it in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s… have you?  I wonder (copyright owned by another poster, used without permission).

      In the early 2000’s we did a parent and student loan for a child… we needed a ‘bridge’ financially… both were minimized, paid off ASAP, and many of the student loans you refer to are not… particularly for liberal arts majors, who then go for Master’s etc.  Figuring they’d all be ‘forgiven’, “skating”, etc.   Two ‘outs’ were Peace Corps or VISTA… folk who ‘worked off’ their debt.

      That would be the people who pay the most in taxes who are smart enough and successful enough to earn that kind of money.

      Telling comment.  Many levels.

      If you want to blame the “system”, including the lenders, colleges/universities, government, students, underwriters, fine… but to single out students or

      social engineering

      Nah… I call BS.

  6. There’s one thing that homelessness and student loan debt have in common that is personal responsibility.

    You and you alone are responsible for choices that you as an individual have made and no one else.

    No matter if you’re homeless or in debt up your eyeballs in student loans go get a job start earning money and get over it you made your bed now you got to sleep in it.

     

     

      1. A rabbinic/Christian cleric/Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist, etc., reply to that metaphor just might be “Whose failure?”… and it would be my reply, as well… the issue is not simple.

        If you view all homeless folk = ‘fail’, separate issue.  Your ‘righteous’ opinion.  Some have truly ‘failed’, by their choices… others have not ‘failed’ by their own choices… my opinion, based on experience… if you believe all folk will have outcomes based on their own choices, then I defer to your comment…

        Just understand that if you believe all folk will have outcomes based on their own choices, that applies in all historical and current situations… my opinion.  Including their choices of principles/politics/religion.

  7. The right wing view of student loans runs this way:  Higher education for those who can’t secure that professional career and end up underemployed only serves to make other uneducated people around them feel bad about themselves.  Because a university degree is not guaranteed to be a net positive financial investment, people should not be allowed to borrow money because they can’t guarantee they will be able to pay the loans back. The only people who should be allowed to borrow money to go to university are people who don’t really need to borrow money to go to school.  The economy doesn’t need highly educated people these days or in the foreseeable future to fill the vast number of jobs as baristas, working at Amazon or other service jobs for those of us who can afford to be served.  They should stay out of colleges and free up space for those of us who come from the kinds of homes or strata that don’t need to borrow and have better job prospects because of who we know, or what we look like. If you have to borrow money for higher education that you can’t pay back easily, it means that you don’t belong in a university and should just get a service job somewhere and accept your place.
     

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