President Biden announced Friday that his administration is forgiving $5 billion in student debt for another 74,000 borrowers, marking the latest round of debt cancellation since the Supreme Court voided the president’s student loan forgiveness program.

Mr. Biden said that of the borrowers who can receive relief, nearly 44,000 are teachers, nurses, firefighters and others who are eligible for forgiveness after working 10 years of public service. Almost 30,000 of those who will have their debt wiped clean have been repaying their loans for at least 20 years, but did not get the relief they earned through income-based plans, the president said.

With the latest round of student loan forgiveness, more than 3.7 million Americans have had their debt erased under the Biden administration, Mr. Biden said.

    • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      That’s nearly 70k per person. For education. That’s…that’s greed on an evil level

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        Yeah, now that you mention it, that’s fucking nuts. On average, $67,500 worth of outstanding balance for these people who went into public service. That doesn’t even take into account what they’ve already paid in principal and interest over the years.

        Edit: it’s actually $72,892 per person being forgiven for people that have worked in public service for more than a decade.

        • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          That’s just about exactly what my wife owes and she’s 2 years away from PLSF freedom. fingers crossed

          PS - I paid off my loans and I hope y’all get all yours forgiven.

        • ohlaph@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I feel like education should be free for everyone, especially people in public service because that is usually challenging work and often well below market pay.

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Careful, you might accidently summon him. No one knows the exact incantation to bring him back and frankly I’d rather add “reanimated corpse of Reagan appointed to state department” to the 2025 bingo card.

          • SoleInvictus@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            I thought you had to turn off the lights in the bathroom of a Better Business Bureau, hold a copy of The Wall Street Journal between your legs, and say his name backwards three times fast whilst flapping your arms like a chicken.

            Or is that how you summon the ghost of Alan Greenspan? It all blends together after awhile.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      What’s insane is this is barely a drop in the bucket…

      There’s over 1,770 billion in student loans debt.

      When people say 1.77 trillion, it might not be immediate how little a few billion is to the larger issue.

      But it’s only around 0.2% of total debt. Probably less because the 1.77 trillion is rounded, and at this scale that’s what 5 billion is. A rounding error they don’t even include that digit when talking about the total amount.