Student loans
I’m beginning to wonder if, perhaps, I was wrong to assume that Joe Biden would never cancel student loan debt.[1] Zack Friedman talks about “IDR,” income-driven repayment;[2] this is actually a different program from the one I’m on, income-based repayment.
But the whole thing is a mess and apparently a lot of folks, like me, have had their payments reduced to zero because our income is so low. It turns out that some, not all, but some of these folks have not been getting credit for these zero-dollar payments toward eventual forgiveness, promised at the end of 20 or 25 years of “payments.”[3] I do not know if I have been affected by this and do not know how to find out if I have.
But it’s clear that the Biden administration understands that all these extensions have seemed ludicrous. If restarting payments now is a hardship,[4] there is little reason to think that it will ever not be. They’re recognizing that they need to do something, but they haven’t decided what that something will be.[5] Which leaves us all in limbo.[6]
Sequoia Carrillo and Cory Turner, “Senators call for probe into student loan program after NPR unearthed major problems,” National Public Radio, April 14, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/04/14/1092804056/student-loan-debt-investigation-response
Justin Sink, “Biden Weighing Student Loan Cancellation or Moratorium Extension,” Bloomberg, April 15, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-15/biden-weighing-student-loan-cancellation-or-moratorium-extension
Zack Friedman, “Biden Will Cancel Student Loans Or Extend Student Loan Pause Before August 31,” Forbes, April 16, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2022/04/16/biden-will-cancel-student-loans-or-extend-student-loan-pause-before-august-31/
Ukraine
Bojan Pancevski and Georgi Kantchev, “Russia Warns It Could Station Nuclear Forces in Europe if Finland, Sweden Join NATO,” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-warns-it-could-station-nuclear-forces-in-europe-if-finland-sweden-join-nato-11649958396
Dan Lamothe et al., “Russia says flagship missile cruiser has sunk after explosion off coast of Ukraine,” Washington Post, April 14, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/14/ukraine-russian-missile-cruiser-moskva-warship/
David E. Sanger, Helene Cooper, and Anton Troianovski, “Girding for New Battle, Russia Warns U.S. on Advanced Weapons for Ukraine,” New York Times, April 15, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/world/europe/ukraine-russia-us-weapons-warning.html
- [1]Justin Sink, “Biden Weighing Student Loan Cancellation or Moratorium Extension,” Bloomberg, April 15, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-15/biden-weighing-student-loan-cancellation-or-moratorium-extension↩
- [2]Zack Friedman, “Biden Will Cancel Student Loans Or Extend Student Loan Pause Before August 31,” Forbes, April 16, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2022/04/16/biden-will-cancel-student-loans-or-extend-student-loan-pause-before-august-31/↩
- [3]Sequoia Carrillo and Cory Turner, “Senators call for probe into student loan program after NPR unearthed major problems,” National Public Radio, April 14, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/04/14/1092804056/student-loan-debt-investigation-response↩
- [4]Danielle Douglas-Gabriel and Andrew Van Dam, “Biden extends federal student loan payment pause through Aug. 31,” Washington Post, April 6, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/04/06/student-loan-pause-biden/↩
- [5]Justin Sink, “Biden Weighing Student Loan Cancellation or Moratorium Extension,” Bloomberg, April 15, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-15/biden-weighing-student-loan-cancellation-or-moratorium-extension↩
- [6]Zack Friedman, “Biden Will Cancel Student Loans Or Extend Student Loan Pause Before August 31,” Forbes, April 16, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2022/04/16/biden-will-cancel-student-loans-or-extend-student-loan-pause-before-august-31/↩