President Joe Biden recently announced his plan to do a long-awaited deed that has had many past and present university students across America holding their breath.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday the president announced his detailed plan to fulfill his campaign promise to provide $10,000 in student debt cancellation for students across the country and even larger cancellations for people in the greatest financial need.<\/p>\n
“My Administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle class families breathing room as they prepare to resume federal student loan payments in January 2023,” Biden wrote in a recent tweet.<\/p>\n
The plan outlines a way for people with federal loans who earn $125,000 a year or families earning less than $250,000 to receive loan forgiveness based at $10,000 and adding upward to an addition $10,000 forgiven for recipients of Pell Grants, an addition reserved for undergraduates with the most significant financial need. About 60% of current loan borrowers who land under that umbrella. according to the White House.<\/p>\n
Biden also announced his plan to extend a pause on all federal student loan payments — which was scheduled to come to an end Aug. 31 — and will now continue until the end of 2022.<\/p>\n
The U.S. currently sits with $1.6 trillion in outstanding federal student debt, with about 1 in 5 Americans holding student loans averaging out at more than $37,000 in debt per the 43.0 million individual borrowers, according to a study by the Educational Data Initiative<\/a> last updated in late July. Biden’s effort will aid 20 million people who are expected to have their debt completely canceled because of the move.<\/p>\n “Both of these targeted actions are for families who need it the most: working and middle class people hit especially hard during the pandemic,” Biden said Wednesday afternoon in a speech at the White House.<\/p>\n What does this mean for Alaska residents?<\/strong><\/p>\n An April 2022 study by the Educational Data Initiative<\/a> study found more than 65,000 Alaska residents are currently living with student loans and just under 50% of them are 35 years old or younger. Overall, that equates to 9.2% of the state’s residents having some type of student loan debt and more than 80% are found to have at least $5,000 in debt to repay.<\/p>\n In a news release on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, wrote in opposition to the Biden administration’s student loan proposal stating that although she is empathetic to the burden of high student debt, it does not recognize those who have already paid off their student loans and said those who borrow money have a duty to repay it.<\/p>\n “As I travel to communities across Alaska I continue to hear how individuals and families are being impacted by rising inflation—from paying for fuel to their grocery bills and other basic necessities. While cancelling some student loan debt for some Alaskans will help ease their budgets after the repayment pause expires, there is no such thing as ‘cancelling’ student loans. This action would add $300 billion to our national debt that every American will be on the hook to pay,” she said. “There are a number of other commonsense alternatives to address this issue, but this is not the appropriate path forward.”<\/p>\n University of Alaska President Pat Pitney said in a statement she welcomes the news as it will aid the many students who borrow to pay for college at UA and said the school will continue to work toward making college more affordable across the state.<\/p>\n “UA strives to make college more affordable and limit student debt through our many scholarship programs including the UA Scholars program, and why we support the Alaska Performance Scholarship, WWAMI and student grant programs,” she said. “Alaskans should explore educational opportunities through UA programs for teachers, engineers, accountants, and the variety of technical programs we offer to meet Alaska’s workforce shortages. Given these shortages, now may be the time to restart the state’s student loan forgiveness program like the process used in the late 1970’s and 1980’s when we saw similar workforce shortages. I think now is the time to restart the program to keep our best and brightest in state.”<\/p>\n Lori Klein, the vice chancellor of enrollment management and student affairs at the University of Alaska Southeast, said she was pleased for students and graduates who have debt that they will be able to find some relief and said “without a doubt, this is welcomed news.”<\/p>\n She said in recent years UAS has seen a trend of students making efforts to not take out loans by reducing the number of classes taken to pay less per semester and instead have shifted to going to school part-time or taking breaks between semesters to raise funds to continue with their education.<\/p>\n “The debt forgiveness program might influence students to be more consistent in their complete pathways and this having that debt forgiven might be able to help them continue that pathway to completion,” she said.<\/p>\n