Student loan payments and interest were paused beginning in March 2020, and when President Joe Biden was elected, his administration planned to cancel up to $10,000 in student loan debt for most borrowers. That plan has been blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The administration has offered some programs for borrowers, like the SAVE plan, which allows some borrowers who make their full payments not to be charged additional interest.
Scott Hazzard-Hart, a Dayton resident who graduated in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology, said he was hoping for student loan forgiveness. But since that hasn’t materialized yet, Hazzard-Hart said he has been putting more money towards his loans.
He’s already paid off $20,000 this year, he said, but has $50,000 remaining.
“I’d saved up during the pandemic,” he said. “Once I kind of gave up on forgiveness, I just paid off a big chunk in loans that I had, that had the most and the highest interest rate first.”
But he and his wife have still reconfigured their money so Hazzard-Hart can prioritize paying off his loans. He said he feels Biden’s administration could be offering more to help borrowers, possibly a program to help those paying back student loans buy homes.
“I feel like after the Biden administration failed to pass broad student loan forgiveness, there hasn’t really been a lot from the campaign about it,” he said. “And it’s just kind of feels like we’re stuck.”
A reformed program, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, is also available to borrowers who make enough qualifying payments and work in public service or nonprofits. But Bailey Denmark, an Oakwood resident who works for nonprofits, says she isn’t sure that the program will work for her even though she believes she qualifies.
She has paid her loans for the last 10 years, except for the COVID-19 pandemic pause that ended in October, but now owes almost $40,000 more in interest than she did originally on her $80,000 loan in 2012, with 27 months of qualifying payments still to be made.
“I don’t know a single person who’s successfully had their loans forgiven,” she said.
With the pause on student loans, she and her wife were able to purchase a home and she has been able to put some money into savings. But Denmark said she thinks she will have to use all the rest of her savings to make payments and she doesn’t want to put the burden of repayment on other people.
“It’s hard because I I feel like if I don’t tell myself that it’s going to be over soon, like the weight of this debt is going to crush me emotionally,” she said.
She said she is worried about the outcome of the 2024 election, since some Republicans have proposed policies that would require her to pay back her loans at a faster rate.
“Those two years that I wasn’t making payments, I felt the lightest that I felt since I started repaying my loans,” Denmark said. “I felt like I was able to breathe and that the boot was kind of off my neck a little bit.”
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