US PresidentJoe Biden announced this Wednesday that it will forgive part of the debt that millions of university students contracted with the federal government in order to pay for their studies, in a nod to the young vote just over two months before the legislative elections.
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Thus, the majority of college graduates in the United States who continue to have student debt will get relief of $10,000.
“Keeping my campaign promise, my administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle-class families a break as they prepare to resume federal student loan payments in January 2023,” he said.
Biden on Twitter less than three months before the midterm elections.
The problem of educational debt is a problem of decades. The $10,000 partial cut only applies to those earning less than $125,000 a year, according to an illustration accompanying a tweet from the president.
Democratic expectations
The proposed relief, however, falls well short of the goal of some Democrats to secure full forgiveness.
The most progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the organizations that represent racial minorities have been pressuring Biden for months to forgive all or at least part of the student debt.
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The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has asked him to forgive $50,000 for each student.e, since in some cases the debts can exceed 100,000 and even 200,000 dollars.
Similarly, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the leading US advocacy group for African Americans, has repeatedly reminded Biden that the black community has been disproportionately affected by the issue of student debt and are calling for $50,000 per student to be forgiven.
Biden, however, has been unwilling to go that far. During the 2020 election campaign, he said he would support paying up to $10,000 to each student.
But Republicans oppose it, arguing that cutting any amount of loans to graduates is unfair to those who have spent years saving to pay off their own debts.
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Since arriving at the White House in January 2021, Biden has forgiven some 32 billion dollars in debt, which has benefited 1.6 million Americans, more than any other government in the country’s history, according to the aforementioned spokesman. .
The US Federal Reserve estimates that four out of ten people who went to college must repay some type of loan.
On average, each student owed between $20,000 and $25,000 in 2020, according to the Federal Reserve.
*With information from AFP and EFE
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