President Biden announced today that the government will forgive student debt for another 54,900 borrowers, all of whom took jobs in public service to qualify.
The U.S. Department of Education released a statement:
The Biden-Harris Administration announced today the approval of $4.28 billion in additional student loan relief for 54,900 borrowers across the country who work in public service. This relief—which is the result of significant fixes that the Administration has made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program—brings the total loan forgiveness by the Administration to approximately $180 billion for nearly five million Americans, including $78 billion for 1,062,870 borrowers through PSLF.
“Four years ago, the Biden-Harris Administration made a pledge to America’s teachers, service members, nurses, first responders, and other public servants that we would fix the broken Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, and I’m proud to say that we delivered,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “With the approval of another $4.28 billion in loan forgiveness for nearly 55,000 public servants, the Administration has secured nearly $180 billion in life-changing student debt relief for nearly five million borrowers. The U.S. Department of Education’s successful transformation of the PSLF Program is a testament to what’s possible when you have leaders, like President Biden and Vice President Harris, who are relentlessly and unapologetically focused on making government deliver for everyday working people.”
The Trump Administration has promised to cease any student loan forgiveness. Project 2025 treats loan forgiveness as a racket and a political trick meant to buy votes. Since Biden has taken action after an election that his party lost, it’s hard to know whose votes he is “buying.” It seems more likely that he is keeping a promise made by the government to students who agreed to enter public service jobs after taking a loan. They kept their promise. Now Biden is keeping the government’s promise to them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Buying votes” . . . do they mean like promising to reduce grocery prices pre-election, and then “walking back” that promise after the election (reneging)? Or did I miss something here? CBK
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You seldom miss anything.
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Roy: What does a whole nation do when the persons in power are so totally unaware of the range of their own limitations and, subsequently, think that their way of thinking and doing things is normative, even brilliant; and so (it follows) that no one else can have a say in how they use their power? CBK
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Whenver the malignant narcicist, sociopath, meglamaniac, who became a traitor on Janaury 6, 2021, then became a convicted rapist, fraud and felon, accuses his perceived eneimes of doing something like buying votes, that’s projecting the crimes he already committed on them without evidence.
Evidence already convicted this want-to-be dictator with more court cases stalled that would convict him of more crimes.
That tactic is part of the lifelone-cheater and serial liar’s chaos play book. The one written by Roy Cohn for his student Donald John Trump. The middle name is a slang word for a prostitute’s client.
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I await the time when Diane Ravitch – for the first time ever – criticizes her fellow tribalists in academia for their massively bloated administrative expenses that have contributed heavily to the student debt problem.
Speaking of tribalism, this week both the Wall Street Journal news section and the New York Times published long articles detailing how Joe Biden’s cognitive decline was well-known even in 2021 and has only gotten worse since. Does Ms. Ravitch still claim that Biden would be fit to serve another four year term?
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One question for you, Andrew Mohlman.
Does Andrew Mohlman still claim that Trump would be fit to serve another four year term?
A simple yes or no will suffice. If you are a right wing troll who can’t say anything bad about Trump, no need to reply.
I can’t answer for Diane, but I would have been thrilled if “unfit” Biden had stayed on the ticket and won another term and did the “bad” job he has done since he was deemed “cognitively unfit” in 2021 – as you keep pointing out. The US had the best recovery from the economic ravages of covid of any western democracy, including lower inflation relative to other countries.
If you are thrilled that “cognitively fit” Trump will enact even more of the horrible policies that helped the very rich and hurt everyone else that he did from 2017-2020, just own it. Maybe a country where vaccines and unions are abolished and only the rich get health care is your idea of nirvana.
LOL that your argument is that the Wall Street Journal says that Trump is very, very fit, but Biden has not been since he took office (or even before).
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Agreed, NYCPSP.
Biden surrounds himself with highly competent people.
Trump surrounds himself with crackpots (Kennedy), Christian nationalists (Hegseth), Putin defenders (Tulsi Gabbard), extremists (Kash Patel).
Biden on his worst day is preferable to Trump on his best day.
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Whatever Biden’s mental condition, he would have been a better president for the four years than Trump. Trump is a malignant narcissist, a persistent liar, a greedy man with multiple conflicts of interest, a man who summoned a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol, an insurrectionist, a sexual predator.
Biden is a man who reveres the Cinstitution, who has served his country with honor for 50 years, the best president since LBJ, a master of the legislative process who has launched the best economy in the world.
Yes, I think that Biden would be a far better president for the next four years than Trump. No question. Not a scintilla of doubt.
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Diane, you just described Joe Biden as “the best president since LBJ, a master of the legislative process who has launched the best economy in the world.” And yet the WSJ informs us that Biden is a cognitive vegetable.
Imagine what Biden would have achieved if he even had 25% of his wits about him instead of being the cognitive vegetable certain folks here have been telling us he was non-stop since 2019.
I agree with you, but I can only imagine the economic miracles these obsessed with cognitive decline folks must believe that Biden would have performed before his cognitive decline. No doubt folks who trust the WSJ believe that 1988 Biden – at cognitive peak at age 46 – would have been the best president in history bar none, performing miracles never before seen in our country’s history.
Apparently the gaining of wisdom does not count for those who put their faith in what the WSJ tells them.
But I am certain that Biden was a better president at age 78 than he would have been at 46. Others here clearly disagree and seem truly obsessed with Biden’s cognitive decline. I guess they think Biden would have performed miracles at age 46, at his cognitive peak.
Although I question the motives of those obsessed with Biden’s supposed cognitive decline. It’s absurd to be obsessed with some impossible to measure “decline” instead of evaluating actual job performance.
Who cares if someone very bad at his job is at their peak cognitive fitness?
Who cares if someone who is performing their job very well has experienced some impossible to measure decline in cognition?
What is this bizarro world these folks obsessed with Biden’s cognition live in?
Matt Gaetz may be at his peak cognitive ability, and Elizabeth Warren may not be at her peak cognitive ability. But I have no doubt which person’s judgement I trust.
So ironic that anyone cites the WSJ, knowing full well that Rupert Murdoch has been declining from his cognitive peak for the last 30 years and yet not being at his cognitive peak did not stop Murdoch from achieving his goals of empowering right wing anti-progressive rule in this country, likely permanently or at least for many decades to come.
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I don’t see that “bloated administrative expenses” have anything to do with democrats or republicans.
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Chuck, I couldn’t answer his question because I have no idea what he’s talking about. As you said, the bloat is not a partisan issue. I didn’t create it and I can’t apologize for it. He should talk to college trustees.
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The subject of “student loan forgiveness” seems to be vastly misunderstood by JQPublic. I glean that from comment threads at WaPo, as well as those at MSN’s news feed. WaPo’s commentariat is better informed; the latter is haunted by many who get their news from Fox et al. Nevertheless, there’s a surprising number of people who have no clue that student loan programs since 1993 have loan forgiveness baked into the terms of the loans. Most are convinced all Biden’s student loan forgiveness is illegal (via SCOTUS ’22 ruling on a different sort of plan).
Clinton tends to get the credit, although I read somewhere that GHWBush had a bee in his bonnet about income-based repayment plans to address an alarming rise in student loan defaults. (Perhaps picked up the idea during his own campaign; it was in Dukakis platform.) Regardless, both the ’93/ ’94 legislation on IDR plans and the 2007 PSLF program had huge bipartisan support in Congress. Today’s conservative Republicans don’t believe in taxpayer-supported public goods.
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