To be fair, it’s a little disingenuous to start counting from the time the first person became eligible, as all the rules had to be in place for over a decade prior to that.
You’re framing it as a program that’s been around for 7 years, when the reality is that it’s been 17.
Don’t disagree with most of your points, but the program itself has been around for quite a while.
The system is more than just a retrospective yes or no after 10 years. You have to work with the DoEd to submit paperwork from your employer to make sure they qualify. You have to work with the DoEd to make sure the type of payments or deferments you’re doing are qualified. Etc.
There have been government employees actively working with people on this for the whole of the 17 years. This is a program that has, in fact, “been around for a long time” in a meaningful way.
Yes, the Trump Administration did a good awful job in trying to intentionally eff it up. But people were in fact able to get through it.
Right now, I know several people who are just a few payments away from being able to qualify, but can’t due to payment freezes with the Mohela cutover and all the legal stuff going on with it. Which, to be clear, I’m not blaming on the Biden administration. But it isn’t like the program has made much meaningful headway in the past 4 years either.
And it seems like this is the easier battle to win than general student loan forgiveness. Expand PSLF. Reduce the term to 5 years and reduce the administrative burdens and overhead. Allow a wider range of zero-cost-payment deferments to count as “qualified payments” towards the total payment number needed.
These would be expansions on policy that have been unchallenged for the past 17 years. That passed through both houses of Congress. This is an easy win that would help ease the burden of millions of Americans. Especially teachers who are cripplingly underpaid and often require a masters degree.
Agreed. If talking about “when the blueprints are drawn up” then 17 is way too short as it’d been in the works and planned for even longer. 17 years ago is when things started operating, even if the first payouts didn’t happen for another ten years.
There’s rarely any using trying to respond with logic to a comment filled with insults…
I explicitly blamed the people who set it up, and that account went off about how I’m blaming Biden.
Logic didn’t get them to their current opinion, and logic won’t help them understand their misunderstanding, they’ll just keep throwing insults and not understanding.
I just report and block those accounts, makes Lemmy a lot more civil when you don’t see the worst
and that account went off about how I’m blaming Biden.
Biden had us pay the illegally charged interest rather than fight it.
I guess someone else wrote his name in there.
Charging borrowers interest is not illegal. Denying participation in government programs over trivial errors is not illegal. Declining to earnestly help people who are eligible rectify their deficient applications is not illegal. Picking a fight you are going to lose on the merits is not smart. Especially when it detracts time and effort away from the much more immediate and necessary goal of helping the large number of people who are still paying.
I explicitly blamed the people who set it up, and that account went off about how I’m blaming Biden.
I agree with you. There’s some nuance that’s being missed. Obviously Biden had nothing to do with a program that got signed into law in 2007.
You (and John Oliver, who’s rarely wrong) said that Biden paid the extra interest - which shouldn’t have existed if things were done right from the start. And this means less money for other loan forgiveness. That’s what Biden is being blamed for. Paying extra interest. Nothing else.
The catch here is that maybe Biden couldn’t have cancelled or reversed that interest without new legislation, which would be tough in these times due to the strong MAGA hold on the GOP half of Congress right now. Hence he had to work within the framework of existing laws and prioritized ending the suffering of his constituents first. On that basis, I figure it’s probably the right call overall, even if it means some scummy for-profits got a little bit fatter.
But the other commenter said,
And here you sit, just another asshole blaming Biden and Democrats for mess their predecessors went out of their way to create, because they didn’t clean it up instantly and perfectly.
Which is just highly inaccurate, as it was only one tiny aspect of the cleanup that was being questioned.
To be fair, it’s a little disingenuous to start counting from the time the first person became eligible, as all the rules had to be in place for over a decade prior to that.
You’re framing it as a program that’s been around for 7 years, when the reality is that it’s been 17.
Don’t disagree with most of your points, but the program itself has been around for quite a while.
What’s disingenuous is Givesomefucks out right lying. But semantics are more your flavor I suppose.
No, it’s disingenuous to count the time a program was, by design, inoperable as functional because it existed on paper.
When does the dam exist? On the day the blueprints are drawn up or on the day it starts filling with water?
The word I would contest is “inoperable.”
The system is more than just a retrospective yes or no after 10 years. You have to work with the DoEd to submit paperwork from your employer to make sure they qualify. You have to work with the DoEd to make sure the type of payments or deferments you’re doing are qualified. Etc.
There have been government employees actively working with people on this for the whole of the 17 years. This is a program that has, in fact, “been around for a long time” in a meaningful way.
Yes, the Trump Administration did a good awful job in trying to intentionally eff it up. But people were in fact able to get through it.
Right now, I know several people who are just a few payments away from being able to qualify, but can’t due to payment freezes with the Mohela cutover and all the legal stuff going on with it. Which, to be clear, I’m not blaming on the Biden administration. But it isn’t like the program has made much meaningful headway in the past 4 years either.
And it seems like this is the easier battle to win than general student loan forgiveness. Expand PSLF. Reduce the term to 5 years and reduce the administrative burdens and overhead. Allow a wider range of zero-cost-payment deferments to count as “qualified payments” towards the total payment number needed.
These would be expansions on policy that have been unchallenged for the past 17 years. That passed through both houses of Congress. This is an easy win that would help ease the burden of millions of Americans. Especially teachers who are cripplingly underpaid and often require a masters degree.
Agreed. If talking about “when the blueprints are drawn up” then 17 is way too short as it’d been in the works and planned for even longer. 17 years ago is when things started operating, even if the first payouts didn’t happen for another ten years.
No it absolutely isn’t.
There’s rarely any using trying to respond with logic to a comment filled with insults…
I explicitly blamed the people who set it up, and that account went off about how I’m blaming Biden.
Logic didn’t get them to their current opinion, and logic won’t help them understand their misunderstanding, they’ll just keep throwing insults and not understanding.
I just report and block those accounts, makes Lemmy a lot more civil when you don’t see the worst
Dude. You literally blamed Biden in your first comment.
I guess someone else wrote his name in there.
Charging borrowers interest is not illegal. Denying participation in government programs over trivial errors is not illegal. Declining to earnestly help people who are eligible rectify their deficient applications is not illegal. Picking a fight you are going to lose on the merits is not smart. Especially when it detracts time and effort away from the much more immediate and necessary goal of helping the large number of people who are still paying.
I agree with you. There’s some nuance that’s being missed. Obviously Biden had nothing to do with a program that got signed into law in 2007.
You (and John Oliver, who’s rarely wrong) said that Biden paid the extra interest - which shouldn’t have existed if things were done right from the start. And this means less money for other loan forgiveness. That’s what Biden is being blamed for. Paying extra interest. Nothing else.
The catch here is that maybe Biden couldn’t have cancelled or reversed that interest without new legislation, which would be tough in these times due to the strong MAGA hold on the GOP half of Congress right now. Hence he had to work within the framework of existing laws and prioritized ending the suffering of his constituents first. On that basis, I figure it’s probably the right call overall, even if it means some scummy for-profits got a little bit fatter.
But the other commenter said,
Which is just highly inaccurate, as it was only one tiny aspect of the cleanup that was being questioned.