Marcjanna Taylor – Opinion Columnist

Student loans have been around since the 60’s, but student debt wasn’t as high as it is today. So what changed? Who’s to blame? During the 80s The Reagan administration pushed through Congress a bunch of tax and or budget cuts so that the states would have to pay so much money towards college. During the 60s-70s states paid about 65% of college costs, by 2013 they paid about 30%. Which seems strange- why would they cut college funding? Well the Reagan administration was trying to bring back steel and coal work, so having states fund college didn’t seem necessary. Along with inflation, and other factors, the student debt crisis we face today was born.
You may be wondering if the Biden administration plans to reverse some of the tax and budget cuts of the Reagan administration? Short answer: no. The Biden administration does however plan to expand the Public Service Loan Forgiveness to be more inclusive and less complicated than previous years. Through the Education Department’s new limited “PSLF Waiver” initiative, the Biden Administration will make some of the requirements temporarily lax. By expanding the eligibility of loans and payment plans, the Education Department believes that more than 600,000 student loan borrowers will be one step closer to student loan forgiveness.
But does that mean that your loans will be forgiven? No, not necessarily, unless of course you fulfill the Biden Administration narrow requirements to receive loan forgiveness under the Education Department’s new PSLF. I understand I had just said that the Education Department expanded the PSLF, but 600,000 loans! 600,000 out of 42.9 million loan borrowers that are closer to loan forgiveness. In my opinion, the Student Department hasn’t expanded the PSLF enough or even better yet had not done enough to bring about student loan forgiveness. Most people who are serving in office went to college during a time when states had to pay 63% of college costs. For those same people to receive those benefits but not at least try to give us the same benefits is ridiculous. I understand that the Biden Administration has been in office for a short period of time but couldn’t they do more? Considering about 92% of student loans come from the Education Department, shouldn’t the Biden administration take funds from another department and put it towards education? Because the current loan forgiveness program feels like they’re putting a band aid on a bullet hole.
It feels as though no administration has looked out for the middle class or working class. And if they had, they didn’t do enough. I understand that administrations have to deal with opposition. But previous administrations have also done things without consulting the opposition. So couldn’t the Biden administration do the same? To fight the Cubans, Reagan essentially committed treason. Couldn’t Biden do something drastic to expand the PSLF? What happened to the days where presidents could just pass legislation that actually accomplished something instead of their administration causing the capitol to shut down?
I would like to see the Biden administration pass some bills expanding the fund for education by taking from the military budget. The US’s spending budget for the military is equivalent to the spending budget of 12 countries and about 10% of the federal budget is spent on the military. Shouldn’t the military budget be cut a fraction instead of cutting education? Couldn’t the Biden administration pass legislation to decrease the military budget and or transfer that excess to the Education Budget. Or pass legislation that reverses what the Reagan administration had passed. For instance, increasing state taxes so that the state can cover more of college expenses like they did in the past. Or better yet tax the rich to cover college expenses- taxing Jeff Bezos alone could probably give loan relief to every loan borrower in the US.
In conclusion the loan relief program from the Biden administration will do little to nothing for most student loan borrowers. For the select few, however, it will get them closer to having their debts relieved. In my opinion the Biden Administration should do more for debt relief and could do more if they wanted to.