$10,000 in Loan Forgiveness Isn’t Enough

Student loan debt protesters in Ashland, Oregon, July 4, 2015 [Reuters/Randall Mikkelsen]

By Subtext

Americans currently have $1.6 trillion in student debt – a monumental amount that means millions of people are stuck paying off loans instead of doing the sorts of things that we’ve been encouraged to see as marking the beginning of adult life, like putting a down payment on a house or car. While college has been sold to young Americans as a guarantee of a happy, middle-class future, it has instead delivered young graduates into the arms of ugly private loan schemes and lifelong debt that’s impossible to shake.

It’s a crisis that organizers forced politicians to address during the 2020 campaign: Senator Bernie Sanders campaigned on forgiving all student debt, while Elizabeth Warren advocated for a means-tested $50,000 of forgiveness. President Biden is now considering a plan to cancel $10,000 of student loan debt per person.

So what would $10,000 of relief really mean to those of us in debt? AJ+ producer Hangda Zhang spoke to a few people about the proposal, and here’s what they had to say.

‘It’s mostly a symbolic gesture’

For me, that doesn't even [amount to] a full semester. My school was on the cheaper end, and the [least] I'd have to pay is $11,000 [per semester] if I didn't include housing, a meal plan and commuting from home. It's mostly a symbolic gesture … I owe a little more than $110,000. Many people have far higher debt than I do, some even into the $500,000s. $10,000 is pocket change in comparison to this. We are not rich. A lot of us are very poor.

These loans, you have to pay over a time period of six years, seven years, eight years – that's just looming over your head the entire time, and it's now going to delay your life by nearly a whole decade … And for me, someone who has struggled with severe mental illness and still continues to, it's not good for my mental health. I have to now juggle looking for a job [with] the fact that my debt payments could be coming at any time the second the COVID crisis is gone. It's very unsafe for so many people in my position – how much we struggle.

— E.J. Go, New Jersey, 23

‘It barely covers the cost of my interest’

I owe about $187,000 in student loans, and I still have a year and a half left of my doctoral program before I move on to an internship and I’ll be expected to pay those loans back. As soon as I get a job in my field, my student loan payments will probably be around the cost of a mortgage payment or a really expensive apartment every month.

I definitely appreciate anything. However, $10,000 … barely covers the cost of my interest on my student loans. [The plan] really doesn't begin to give any type of relief for those of us who have gone on and gotten master's degrees and doctorates who still are expected to pay back over $150,000 in loans. And it seems like a disconnect from reality and the gravity of the situation, because most people who are coming right out of school aren't getting paid that much.

— Mari Kippins, Virginia, 38

‘He's just missing the entire private loan issue’

I wish I knew more when I was 18. I was just kind of excited to get into college. I signed up for a private loan, not doing too much research into it, just because I didn't really know the difference between federal or private loans. I spent six years in college because I changed my major. Now I’m hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. It just keeps growing because at one point, once I started looking at my loans, I saw that Sallie Mae sold some of my loans to Navient, and upon further inspection I had loans at 9.5%, 10.5% interest and maybe even higher.

I accepted a new job, which is decent pay for a teacher. Once I accepted that job, I was kind of excited to go get started, buy a house, to start saving up for retirement. And rather than doing that, I'm flushing a lot of it into paying back my student loans.

I think [Biden] is just kind of missing the entire private loan issue. I think a lot of that should be illegal. It feels predatory to me that 18-year-olds that are just excited about getting to college, having no idea how to research it. It's still confusing. Now, when I try to look up how to consolidate my loans, I have a tough time figuring it out, and I'm educated. I think that has to be relooked at somehow, whether it's putting a cap on those private loans or doing something else about it.

— James Moreland, Pennsylvania, 25

Watch more of our interviews with students and former students on Biden’s student loan proposal:

Is President-elect Biden's plan to cancel $10,000 in federal student loan debt enough? Some say no. pic.twitter.com/zWUElNVNYA

— AJ+ (@ajplus) January 15, 2021

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