May 9, 2022
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If Biden forgives $10,000 in student-loan debt, swing states could see higher turnout in November, per a Data for Progress poll exclusive.
A new poll suggests student-loan relief might help voter turnout in November's midterm elections.
Data for Progress, in collaboration with Rise — a higher education advocacy group — conducted a survey obtained exclusively by Insider of 2,066 likely voters in the battleground states Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of which flipped from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Respondents were polled on how likely they would be to vote in the November general election should Biden implement a range of policy measures related to student debt, and it found that 45% of them would be somewhat or much more likely to vote if Biden cancels $10,000 in student debt for every federal borrower, which he pledged to do on the campaign trail.
Additionally, 46% of respondents also said they would be likelier to go to the polls if Biden were to cancel $50,000 in student debt for every federal borrower — an amount many progressives lawmakers have been pushing for. Over one-third of respondents said another motivating factor to vote would come from a further extension of the pause on student-loan payments through the end of the year.
Student-loan payments have been paused for over two years, with waived interest, and they're set to resume in one month, on May 1. While Republican lawmakers have been urging Biden against another extension of that pause, Democrats have argued that federal borrowers need continued relief, and the president should either extend the pause a fourth time, or cancel some amount of student debt before borrowers have to resume repayment.
Chair of the Senate Education Committee Patty Murray, for example, recommended that Biden extend the pause on student-loan payments through at least 2023 to give him time to "permanently fix" flaws in the student-loan industry, like broken loan-forgiveness programs. 43 Democratic lawmakers recently said both borrowers and the Education Department are "unprepared" to resume in payments in May.
"Millions of borrowers have benefitted from the pause in payments," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Biden. "Although progress has been made, we believe it is vital to ensure that we continue to work to alleviate the continued impact the pandemic is having on families across the country."
According to the survey, 55% of respondents said they trust the Democratic Party more to provide student debt relief, but lawmakers in that party have expressed concerns with voter turnout should they fail to deliver on progressive priorities. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in December it would be "actually delusional" to think Democrats could win elections if they fail to follow through on voter priorities. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in January that canceling student debt "would persuade a lot of young people that this president is in the fight for them."
Borrowers are still waiting to hear from the president on any student-debt forgiveness plans with the payment resumption just a month away as pressure continues to mount for Biden to take decisive action on the issue.
Student Loans are just Institutionalized Indentured Servitude!
It’s The “New Slavery For All” ... and mostly White People have the resources to actually pay off their Student Loans, most People Of Color don’t, or can’t get them!
Phroyd
Elizabeth Warren is looking for more than incremental change. She wants a generational change.
On the heels of President Joe Biden officially extending the student loan payment moratorium until August 31 -- claiming it "will help Ameri
On the heels of President Joe Biden officially extending the student loan payment moratorium until August 31 — claiming it “will help Americans breathe a little easier as we recover and rebuild a little from the pandemic" — it seems he is also returning hundreds of thousands of disabled borrowers behind on loan payments to good standing.
The Biden administration recently announced that it has cancelled $7 billion in federal student loan debt for some 350,000 borrowers with disabilities through a data-sharing initiative between the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Education Department.
Through sharing information of individuals who were receiving benefits from the SSA, qualification for the Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) discharge program could be confirmed and student loans automatically cancelled.
TPD discharge is when your obligation to pay your William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) Program loans, Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program loans, Federal Perkins Loan (Perkins Loan) Program loans, and Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant Program service is discharged due to your total and permanent disability.
In a tweet, Chief Operating Officer of Federal Student Aid (and undefeated five-time Jeopardy! champion) Richard Cordray wrote, “Working together with @SocialSecurity, Federal Student Aid has provided much-needed relief for 350,000 borrowers with approximately $7 billion in student loans.”
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most federal student loans and their interest rates have been paused since March 2020. But after a series of federal student loan payment pauses and extensions by President Biden and former President Trump, advocates were calling for more than short-term solutions.
Although many Republicans and private lenders are lobbying for the president to reinstate federal student loan payments, Democrats and loan forgiveness supporters have been even more vocal in pressuring the president to extend payment obligations until the end of the year at least or abolish existing student loan balances altogether.
The Biden administration announced its intent to use this data-sharing initiative to streamline student loan relief for certain disabled borrowers in August 2021. It is believed that the Education Department will be issuing 15,000 to 20,000 TPD discharges every quarter through the initiative. In addition to the data-sharing initiative, Biden is also planning to suspend post-discharge monitoring of employment earnings and overhaul the TPD discharge program’s disability identification application process, according to Forbes.
With approximately 43 million Americans holding student loans and the average borrower owing around $36,000, loan forgiveness would immediately boost the economic health of these individuals and help address racial and economic equity issues. While many are calling for a more comprehensive student loan program rebuild, recent TPD efforts are consistent with the Biden administration’s stated goal of providing “targeted” student loan forgiveness.
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Biden Cancels $7 Billion in Federal Student Loans for Disabled Students Through Data-Sharing Program
Biden's extension of the pause in student loan payments would mark the fifth time the government has continued the freeze, without wide forg
President Joe Biden plans to extend the moratorium on federal student loan payments through Aug. 31, the Associated Press reported, citing a federal official. For tens of millions of Americans, student debt limbo will continue another three months.
The move will mark the fifth extension since the pause took effect in March 2020. This time, inflation is climbing and gas prices are soaring in connection to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. All the while, the nation’s $1.7 trillion student loan debt portfolio continues to grow, with no firm direction for the indebted.
The freeze saves 41 million borrowers about $5 billion a month, the Education Department has said previously.
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Though borrowers likely will appreciate the extra wiggle room, many have grown frustrated with the continued extensions without a plan for widespread forgiveness. Both conservative and liberal politicians are expected to pan the Biden administration’s actions.
Some Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have been pressing Biden to use his executive authority to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower. As recently as March 31, dozens of Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the president urging him to extend the pause through year's end and "to provide meaningful student debt cancellation."
But Biden has said he believes such action must come from Congress. That’s likely an uphill battle with an evenly split Senate and Republicans broadly opposed to debt forgiveness. The president had campaigned on forgiving up to $10,000 in debt per borrower.
Pelosi Agrees With Biden: She Says President Doesn’t Hold Power To Cancel Student Loan Debt, Breaking With Top Dems
Conservative advocacy groups, led by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, say the moratorium has been overly generous to those with student loan debt at the expense of those without a higher education. They sent a letter March 8 to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urging him to restart payments as a way to address the national deficit and combat inflation.
Meanwhile, borrowers are getting more insistent in their pleas for widespread loan forgiveness.
On Monday, borrowers from California, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania traveled to Washington to press the president to cancel student loan debt. They assembled outside of the Education Department with signs that read, “Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay,” or “You are not a loan.” The Debt Collective, an advocacy group focused on debt cancellation, arranged the event.
Borrowers at the demonstration said the payment pause helped them, but they wanted long-term cancellation. They said the repeated extensions make it difficult for them to plan.
“The pause doesn’t change the fact that it’s still not affordable,” said Elisha DeJesus, 27, a Massachusetts therapist for children.
DeJesus has about $40,000 in student loan debt. She said it would be a struggle to restart payments given recent inflation. She's also paying for gas more frequently as she has returned to working in an office.
Life Without Loans: How The Payment Pause Changed People’s Lives
Regardless of when payments restart, the government is expected to face challenges in getting borrowers to resume their payments. A January report from the Government Accountability Office found nearly half of the 42.3 million borrowers covered by the freeze are at high risk for delinquency.
The at-risk group includes people who were delinquent on their loans before the pause, those who dropped out of college and graduates within the last three years who haven’t had to make any loan payments, thanks to the freeze.
Though it remains unclear if the president ultimately will erase student loan debt en masse, the Education Department has taken some steps to offer borrowers permanent relief. The agency is on track to cancel more than $17 billion owed by borrowers since Biden took office. That forgiveness has come through expansions of existing debt forgiveness programs, such as those for borrowers who have permanent disabilities or were defrauded by their schools.
For instance, the department announced recently it had identified about 100,000 borrowers who would benefit from changes it announced to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program in October. That would clear about $6.2 billion in debt for the affected borrowers. And the government sent another $415 million to 16,000 students defrauded by for-profit universities.
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