More than 40,000 public comments were received on the new large-scale federal student loan forgiveness plan promoted by the Joe Biden administration. As of the 10th, 45,097 comments were received on the student loan forgiveness plan published in the Federal Register. There is a lot of interest as the public opinion collection period, which began after the official gazette notice on the 17th of last month, ends on the 17th. Mark Kantrowitz, a higher education expert, said, “The number of opinions posted like this is a record number,” and explained, “The public’s interest is strong as there are strong opinions for and against student loan forgiveness.”
The new student loan forgiveness plan proposed by President Biden last month is considered an alternative to the first forgiveness plan, which was blocked from implementation by the Supreme Court in June of last year. While the previous plan was to forgive student loan debt borrowed from the federal government, the difference in the new forgiveness plan is that it provides relief to borrowers who owe more than the loan principal amount due to interest. The new forgiveness plan forgives up to $20,000 of debt that has increased due to unpaid interest, regardless of the borrower’s income, for student loans registered in an income-based repayment plan such as SAVE and with an annual income of less than $120,000 for individuals and $240,000 for couples combined. In the case of loan borrowers, the goal is to write off all interest.
Additionally, the new forgiveness plan includes the automatic forgiveness of the remaining debt for those who took out student loans for a bachelor’s degree and repaid the debt for more than 20 years. In the case of graduate school, if repayments are made over 25 years, the remaining debt is automatically written off. In addition, debtors with a large financial burden, such as those who took out student loans to enroll in poor educational courses, those with medical debt or high childcare expenses, are also eligible for student loan forgiveness. If the new forgiveness plan is implemented, tens of millions of people are expected to benefit, but it is estimated that a budget of $84 billion will be needed for this, and conservatives, including the Republican Party, are strongly opposing it, citing the increased burden on taxpayers. Opinions submitted to the Federal Register also have strong pros and cons. In the case of those in favor, they state their positions such as ‘student loan debt follows us throughout our lives’, ‘cancelling debt will help the local economy’, and ‘resolving long-standing inequality’. On the other hand, the opposing side expressed positions such as ‘Putting an unfair burden on those who did not go to college or have already paid off all of their student loan debt’ and ‘President Biden is trying to buy votes with money.’
The Biden administration expects that if the forgiveness plan is finalized as proposed, some provisions, such as interest forgiveness, will be able to be implemented starting this fall. However, Republican-led state governments have announced legal action to block implementation of the new student loan forgiveness plan.