Savannah Britt owes nearly $27,000 on a loan she took out to attend college at Rutgers University, a debt she hoped to see reduced by President Joe Biden’s efforts to forgive student loans.
His payments are on hold while the courts resolve challenges to the loan forgiveness program. But as the weeks wind down on Biden’s time in office, he could soon face a monthly payment of up to $250.
“With this new administration, the dream is no more. It was shot,” said Britt, 30, who runs his own communications agency. “I was hopeful before Tuesday. I was waiting for the procedure. Even my mother has a loan that she takes to support herself. He owes about $18,000, and he was in the process of getting forgiven, but it’s still pending.”
President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans have criticized Biden’s efforts to forgive the loans, while GOP-led states have held up widespread debt relief plans. Trump has yet to say what he will do about loan forgiveness, leaving millions of borrowers facing uncertainty about their finances.
The economy was a key issue in the election, which helped propel Trump to victory. But for borrowers, concerns about their finances extend beyond inflation to include their student debt, said Persis Yu, managing counsel for the Borrower Protection Center.
“That’s a big part of what makes life unaffordable is the burden of expenses that they can’t seem to get out from under,” said Yu.
Student loan cancellation has not been a focus of the Trump campaign or Vice President Kamala Harris, who has removed the issue from her political events. The issue came up once in September’s presidential debate, when Trump blasted Harris and Biden for failing to deliver on their promise of widespread pardons. Trump called it a “total disaster” that “taunted young people.”
Biden promised a student loan cancellation plan when he ran for president. Since its introduction, Biden’s loan forgiveness has faced pushback from opponents who say it benefits some and comes at the expense of those who have repaid their loans or who didn’t go to college.
Biden’s first plan to cancel up to $20,000 in payments to millions of people was blocked by the Supreme Court last year. A second, smaller plan was halted by a federal judge after Republican-led states sued. A separate policy aimed at reducing loan payments for struggling borrowers has been halted by a judge, even after Republican-controlled states challenged it.
Overall, Biden’s efforts have been unpopular, even among those loaned to students. Three in 10 American adults say they approve of Biden’s handling of student loan debt, according to a survey conducted by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Four out of 10 approved. Others were neutral or didn’t know enough to say.
Project 2025, a radical reform plan for American government that aligns with Trump’s other priorities, calls for the federal government to get out of the student loan business and end repayment plans that predate the Biden administration.
Even without directly addressing student loans, Trump has made promises that will affect them. He has pledged to dismantle the US Department of Education, which has a $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio. It is not clear which entity would take over that responsibility if the department is removed, which would require approval from Congress.
Yu noted that the Biden administration was able to cancel the student loans of about 5 million borrowers, although the signature effort was blocked. The administration did it by relying on the money cancellation programs already in place. For example, the existing student loan forgiveness program for public service workers has provided assistance to more than a million Americans, up from just 7,000 approved before it was revised by the Biden administration two years ago.
“A lot of the repeals we’ve seen in the last few years are because the Biden administration is committed to making the programs written into the law work for the people,” Yu said.
Sabrina Calazans, 27, owes nearly $30,000 in student loans from her college days at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania. Her payments have also been suspended, but she could soon face a monthly payment of more than $300.
“As a first-generation American, I live at home with my family, I contribute to my household income, and that payoff is huge for me and many others like me,” said Calazans, who is originally from Brazil.
In her role as executive director of the Student Debt Crisis Center, Calazans said she has been telling people to stay up-to-date on developments by using the loan simulator on the Federal Student Aid website and reading updated information on forgiveness qualifications and repayment plans.
“There is a lot of confusion about student loans,” said Calazans, and not just among young people. “We see many parents taking out loans so that their children can go to school. We see old people going back to school and they have to take out loans.”
Associated Press education reporter Collin Binkley in Washington, DC. contributed to this report.
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-Cheyanne Mumphrey, Associated Press
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