College Democrats: David Finnegan
On the 2020 campaign trail, Joe Biden promised to forgive student debt for all debtholders earning up to $125,000. Now as President, Mr. Biden has fulfilled his promises, forgiving up to $20,000 in debt for individuals earning less than $125,000 per year. Student loan forgiveness has been one of the most significant accomplishments of an administration that spearheaded legislative milestones such as the bipartisan infrastructure plan and Medicare reform. While Democrats have largely backed President Biden’s decision, it has faced stark criticism from Republicans. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado has come out as a leading opponent of student loan forgiveness. She has claimed the plan would be used to fund “Karen’s daughter’s degree in lesbian dance theory”. Which not only diminishes the accomplishments of artists but is incredibly offensive. The narrative that student debt will only benefit the upper-middle class is quantitatively false. In an article for the New York Times, White House Correspondent Jim Tankersley stated that “the people eligible for debt relief are disproportionately young and Black” and within the “middle band of Americans by income.” According to statistics from the Department of Education in 2021, 75% of borrowers are earning less than $40,000 per year. Furthermore, average tuition costs at public universities in 2021 have multiplied 2.58 times in thirty years. At private universities, the cost has nearly doubled 2 . Despite this, Pell Grant values, which are intended to support low-income families, have largely remained stagnant as tuition costs rose. The maximum Pell Grant values from 2001-2002 were $5,720 and now stand at $6,495, barely a 1% increase. Student Loan Forgiveness should not be looked at as a ‘handout’, as it has been described by opponents. Rather, it should be seen as an effort to compensate for the failures in increasing Pell Grants to better represent increases in public and private tuition costs. By making higher education accessible everywhere, we are directly investing in the future of this country. Education, no matter the level or discipline, is integral to the well-being of society. Biden’s investment in student debt relief is a gift for generations to come.
College Republicans: Joe Pistulli
Biden’s plan to give loan forgiveness to every American who applies can be very detrimental. Although I would love to cancel my debt, I think we need to understand a few things and why this can hurt us more than help; first being the price tag that comes along with it. According to a Washington Post article posted on Tuesday, Oct. 18, there are already 8 million who applied for it. If you do the math (8,000,000 x 10,000) equates to a lot of money which shows no sign of stopping. This is going to have a detrimental effect on the government’s budget deficit which is still around 30 trillion dollars. Let us also put some common sense into the argument. You, yourself, and only you choose to take that loan out to further fund your education. You could have walked out with your high school diploma when you graduated and invested in stocks, flipped homes, or done some side hustle that social media makes look easy. You also could have done the most logical thing, gotten a job, saved some money and gone about things differently. Let us remember that some of the richest people today did not even go to or dropped out of college, so we do not always need a college degree to be this successful. So why should the everyday American have to pay for yet another thing out of their paycheck when they might have never taken out said loan or have already paid them?
