The Supreme Court says no to Student Loan Debt Cancellation: Stay Focussed.

The feds convinced millions of borrowers to move their loans into the Department Of Education for this loan cancellation stuff to all work. I wonder how many did so believing that their loans would be forgiven. I wonder too how many who agreed to these loan reconsolidations and refinances had to also agree to pay higher interest rates during these DOE refi's. Sadly, during a payment freeze, and sadly during a refinance to forgiven incentive a hopeful many are now very likely stuck with a higher interest rate than had they left their loans where they were (if I recall the DOE refi paperwork cautions about possible higher rates in moving loans to DOE).  I'm hesitantly aware that this whole thing will now move to the blame of conservatives and the blame of liberals and the blame of those students who should have known better. Few, interestingly enough, will blame the banks or the feds (aka: DOE). 

     PHOTO CREDIT: Brett Jordan and Unsplash

My hope would be that we citizens who are so inclined not lose sight of the issue here - making student loans less of a burden to those who cannot afford them. In that vain, if the Department of Education convinced you to refinance at a higher interest rate under the guise of forgiveness and cancellation, now that cancellation has been outlawed, the DOE should not blame the courts or the politics ... and the politics really should not blame each other - the system all of them so relied upon has dropped the gavel. Instead the DOE honorably should reverse course by ordering interest rates on student loans to be dropped to the zero prime loan rates that were evident in and before the COVID stop payment rule was effected during the prior republican administration. The DOE has been using that stop payment thing as its tool to now help the over indebted. You see this whole pub or dem thinking is a full blown miss: the solutions here are in the hands of those who lost their supreme court case - the DOE. My hope for the burdened and impoverished in student loans is that they/you do not give a pass to anyone by blaming anyone but instead ask and challenge the DOE to do the next best thing: zero the interest. 

Why? Any government student loan at over the current prime is a government approved rip off (and is predatory). Any government approved loan from the COVID era at over a point above the zero prime (the 0 rate during the pandemic) is also a government approved rip off (and predatory). This suggests the pubs and the dems and the DOE are culprits in predatory student loan regs.  The DOE can still act - somehow. 

On a personal note I've worked in rural ESE school counseling programs many many years (2004-2018) and because I was self employed, am not eligible for the give to the good loan forgiveness program. I've never missed a single loan payment from 2005 to 2023 (and I still have many years to go): at a rather low loan rate I've paid in over $120,000. Whatever you call a 6 years Masters Degree - it is/was very very expensive. I would love forgiveness and cancellation - I've been fortunate to be able to pay the bill every single month (and I've paid out $15.00 extra a month since 2005-with no early pay off evident - an oddity of its own).

The banks fee's, processing and the interest - as well as the government's two party role in this is unacceptable. Blame of one party or another will not help here for a soluition. Asking the DOE to drop the fees and interest would take a big part of $70,000 to $700,000 >student< loans reduce much more quickly with every payment.  

#dosomething #nevergiveup #sharethisfreely

Article referencing the supreme court ruling on student debt cancellation: 

https://www.msn.com/en-US/news/politics/supreme-court-strikes-down-bidens-plan-to-forgive-millions-of-student-loans/ar-AA1dgjsM?ocid=sapphireappshare