Student Loan Extension Approved Again
As announced by the U.S. Department of Education April 6th:
“An extension of the pause on student loan repayment, interest, and collections has been made through August 31, 2022. This is done to allow for the economy to continue to improve and COVID cases continue to decline. President Biden has made clear the continuing need to respond to the pandemic and its economic consequences, as well as to allow for the responsible phase-down of pandemic relief.”
The promise of canceling debt does not look promising to me. The issue being these loans were flawed from the beginning. One change occurring is the Department of Education appears to be promising to make people whole again.
“The extension will provide additional time for borrowers to plan for the resumption of payments. This will reduce the risk of delinquency and defaults after restart. The Department will also continue to assess the financial impacts of the pandemic on student loan borrowers and to prepare to transition borrowers smoothly back into repayment. This includes allowing all borrowers with paused loans to receive a “fresh start” on repayment by eliminating the impact of delinquency and default and allowing them to reenter repayment in good standing. “
I am not sure what this “eliminating the impact of delinquency and default and allowing them to reenter repayment in good standing” means. Delinquency and default how far back? Some of these loans are decades old. The amounts or penalties in delinquency are tens of thousands dollars.
It doe not appear as if there will be forgiveness as promised.
A handy guide on student debt cancellation (SDC) to rebut the naysayers of Forgiving Student Loan Debt – The American Prospect
Make higher ed free for the doctors, educators, architects, engineers and even the CPAs, but charge all the lawyers double to pay for them and everyone else is on their own. What we do not need more of is those that attend college only because they have no idea what they will do in life if they have to get a job, many if not most of whom drop out before they get a degree. Of the life procrastinators that do stay on to get a degree, then more often than not it was on daddy’s dime whereas dropping out is often a simple choice between the reality of debt and the laziness of indecision.
Ron
If I had not been involved with student loans for the last couple of decades, I would probably just nor my head. I am sure there are some who fit the description you have described just like there are some black ladies running around in pink Cadillacs and a hand full of welfare checks cashing them where ever they can be. The nation is sold on getting an education and pretty much every where you look, there are many lacking a college education, under paid for what they are doing, lacking healthcare, and paying high rent.
High Schools like Harold G. Lane Technical used to (when I attended) existed where young men (then) could learn about a trade such as plumbing, auto repair, carpentry, house framing, etc., or go on through college prep. I took some of those courses and learned from my dad also. My dad was a tuckpointer / bricklayer who never finished grade school. He told the four of us don’t do what I did. And we didn’t. Three graduate degrees later and one BA. Pretty good for him and an Italian mom with a high school education.
Your tongue in cheek silliness skirts the issues of college education being costly, deliberately deceptive, etc. We sell kids on taking loans from which there is no escape or meaningful relief. You can dump a car loan far easier than a student loan which will attach your SS even though it will never be paid back in full.
Senator Debbie Stabenow gave my questions on what she was doing to correct the issue of student loans than what you are doing here with your remarks. For ~ 6 minutes we went back and forth where I countered her comments at a garden party in support of her re-election. You know better than this . . .
What bothers me is your blaming the student for being sold a bill
Run,
Understood and agreed.
Sometimes taking a controversial stand is a starting point for finding a deeper answer. You brushed across one such answer albeit perhaps accidentally. College educations cost way more than they are worth for the ordinary white collar “office” worker (such as my wife). IOW, the return on investment for the college costs are the reason that repayment is so difficult. That might be why she did not complete her degree program. My rudimentary point was that college should be free for those that complete programs for work critical to our economy and even our existence.
My personal experience was unusual even in our youth, but nearly impossible today. But only nearly impossible now since in the gaming rather than commercial computing realm kids still go directly from high school into big dollar gigs by virtue of their self-taught skills and demonstrated accomplishments. Still that is a tiny niche too small for many to fit into.
My wife began in health insurance as a membership enrollment and billing call center worker bee and now she leads information systems change implementation teams. OTOH, there are a lot of important jobs for which higher education is essential, particularly in the medical, scientific, and engineering professions. However, in these a bachelors degree is not always sufficient. Writing this I just learned that an RN can take either a ADN or BSN path. In any case, pushing paper – even important paper – does not require a degree. There are entry level corporate jobs from which a bright motivated individual can advance themselves – and do so with lower likelihood of dead-ending because of insufficient work place experience. Then of course, my wife and her older sister, both of whom took that path, ended up staying with Anthem in Richmond, VA since it was Trigon BC/BS. That is not what most young people want to do nowadays. Job hopping requires demonstrated skill even more than a degree, at least to keep doing it for long.
After a decade developing IS applications, then I took the move into IT systems management and support which gave me the chance to enter into a performance and capacity management roll that an outsider would have needed a graduate degree to land. I was lucky. You were not a paper pusher either. You took the more conventional and surer route. More workers are victims of credentialism rather than employed in highly technical fields.
Run,
BTW, if you can gain effective traction on student load debt forgiveness, then more power to you. I am the suspicious sort myself. The combination of rising costs for higher education alongside rising credentialism empowered by plentiful government guaranteed lending without bankruptcy protection all together just sounds like cleverly constructed debt peonage to me. The 9th ring of hell was built by a consortium of lawyers and financiers.
More people would complain about this if they were not so distracted by the NCAA.
Oops – “roll” or role? Both. A lucky roll landed me in a perfect role.