The Biden-Harris Administration continues to live up to one of its largest campaign promises. On April 8, President Joe Biden announced plans to cancel student loans for over 30 million Americans. Biden announced the plans in Milwaukee, while Vice President Kamala Harris announced the plans in Philadelphia.
Department of Education Undersecretary James Kvaal spoke to rolling out to discuss the plans and their impact.
What was today’s announcement from the Biden-Harris administration about?
Today, the President is announcing his sweeping plans for student debt relief. In combination, [it] will reach more than 30 million Americans.
We are announcing a set of programs that offer relief to people who really need it. For example, people who owe more on their loans than they originally borrowed because interest has outstripped what they can afford to pay.
What has debt cancellation looked like during this administration?
Two big things.
One, we realized many people eligible for loan forgiveness weren’t actually making it through the bureaucracy here at the department. So, we’ve worked really hard to get people who were public servants, people who had disabilities, and people who’ve been ripped off by for-profit colleges the relief they’re entitled to. Today, we’re announcing we passed four million people eligible for relief, and we’ll be processing their relief.
The second thing we’ve done is create the most affordable way to repay your loans ever: the SAVE plan. Under the SAVE plan, your monthly payments are on a sliding scale based on how much you earn. [Suppose] you make less than about $15 an hour. [In that case,] you don’t owe anything because we don’t think student loans should come before the basic cost of living and other necessities. Those are the two single biggest steps we’ve taken so far.
What is the impact of this news on America?
There are a lot of people out there struggling.
Some people say, “Well, I didn’t take out a loan. So it’s not my problem.”
But that’s just not the way I see it. People who are looking to go to college, and by the way, it’s not just for your college, it’s community college, it’s trade school that people take out loans for. [Families make those] investments in future generations; people are trying to pull up and support their parents, the siblings coming behind them; they want to buy a house [and start] a business. So, student loan relief is good for our community and the economy as a whole. It’s an investment we need to make as a country.
How did working with the Obama administration about this issue go versus this current administration?
No administration has ever done anything like what this President has done.
His ideas are equal to the size of the problem people have. It’s really been a tremendous effort to lift the burden of student debt off people who have it.
He’s also working really hard to hold colleges accountable when they leave people with loans they can’t afford and to invest to make college more affordable, doubling the Pell Grant and fighting for free college tuition programs. It’s a really different way of thinking about how people pay for college.
