{"id":21229,"date":"2022-01-27T13:11:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T21:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=21229"},"modified":"2022-01-27T13:11:03","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T21:11:03","slug":"student-debt-must-be-canceled-not-just-paused-elizabeth-warren-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/01\/27\/student-debt-must-be-canceled-not-just-paused-elizabeth-warren-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Debt Must Be Canceled, Not Just Paused, Elizabeth Warren Says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"As
PAUL MORIGI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This story is published as part of<\/em>\u00a0Teen Vogue\u2019s 2022<\/em>\u00a0Economic Security Project fellowship<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow is the time,\u201d the senator tells Teen Vogue<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

BY\u00a0<\/strong>JACQUI GERMAIN<\/a> JANUARY 24, 2022 (teenvogue.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the eve of the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, President Biden held a two-hour-long press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final reporter to speak asked a simple question<\/a>: \u201cYou campaigned on canceling $10,000 in student loans. Do you still plan to do so \u2014 and when?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president\u2019s answer didn\u2019t offer anything explicit. A year into his presidency, Biden still hasn\u2019t delivered on his most compelling<\/a> student debt-related campaign promises<\/a>. The $12.7 billion<\/a> of relief Biden has provided<\/a> so far<\/a> is just 0.8% of the roughly $1.6 trillion<\/a> in total outstanding federal student loan debt. The Biden administration has extended the federal student loan payment pause three times<\/a>, with the newest extension<\/a> expiring on May 1. But whether it\u2019s the president\u2019s $10,000 commitment or the $50,000 minimum Senator Elizabeth Warren and other congressional Democrats<\/a> are aiming for, broad student debt cancellation seems to have been more of a campaign voter push than a genuine presidential priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0time<\/em>, Mr. President!\u201d says Senator Elizabeth Warren in a phone interview with\u00a0Teen Vogue<\/em>\u00a0the morning after Biden\u2019s press conference. \u201cThe pause on student loan debt repayment has shown how significant it is in the lives of millions of Americans. The pause has given people a chance. It\u2019s a reminder of how student loan debt now profoundly affects our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teen Vogue<\/em> spoke with Senator Warren about the current status of the student debt cancellation fight and its developing future. The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teen Vogue<\/strong><\/em>: People who oppose student loan cancellation like to pit working people who went to college and working people who didn\u2019t go to college<\/strong> against each other<\/strong><\/a>, arguing that the latter would be paying for debt cancellation for the former. What would you say to working people who didn\u2019t go to college who do, in fact, feel like they\u2019d be paying for someone else\u2019s degree?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth Warren:<\/strong> Canceling student loan debt is good for the whole economy. Right now, people who are struggling with student loan debt don\u2019t move out of mom\u2019s house, don\u2019t buy cars, don\u2019t buy homes, and don\u2019t start small businesses. All of that holds our economy back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second part is, remember \u2014 about 40% of people<\/a> who are carrying student loan debt don\u2019t have a college diploma<\/a>. They did what we love best in America \u2014 they tried something new. They enrolled in college or a technical school, but life happened. Now they\u2019re struggling with a mountain of debt that they have to pay off on what a high school grad makes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV<\/strong>: I\u2019ve also seen that several major unions have come out<\/strong> in support of<\/strong><\/a> some student debt<\/strong><\/a> cancellation after finding that their own members are struggling with student debt. And so this is very much a working-class fight.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

EW:<\/strong> It very much is. [I read] a piece on how one of the labor unions in Massachusetts has endorsed<\/a> cancellation of student debt. Another piece of it is that we talk about it as college debt, but it\u2019s post-high school debt. There are many people who have gone for technical training who are now struggling with tens of thousands of dollars in debt that they can\u2019t manage. College is kind of the big word we use to cover it all, but it\u2019s really about post-high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people are struggling \u2014 I mean, really struggling \u2014 with an amount of debt that seems modest to someone who makes a whole lot more money. So there are people who have $20,000 of student loan debt, but who are working at minimum wage. And that $20,000 might as well be $20 million. They don\u2019t have enough extra money to pay it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV<\/strong><\/em>: And that\u2019s not counting interest rates, too.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

EW:<\/strong> That is the part that really makes this tough. The federal government is a tough debt collector. And when people get into trouble, the government compounds that interest and then stays on them for repayment forever. There are people who tell me that they went to school for a couple of years [and] it didn’t work out, but in total they borrowed $30,000 and now they owe $130,000. I meet people who tell me they originally borrowed $50,000, that they have now paid $60,000, and they still owe a hundred [thousand]. This is what the combination of compound interest and penalties [does] when people fall behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve [also] had student loan debt servicers who didn’t work to try to get people into the right repayment plans. They just put people into the plans<\/a> that work best for the servicer<\/a>. And if that meant that the student\u2019s debt compounded and became unpayable, the servicing company didn’t care<\/a>. They raked in millions of dollars in profits anyway. There are people who’ve already been paying for more than 20 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV:<\/strong><\/em> The<\/strong> very first piece of legislation<\/strong><\/a> you proposed when you joined the Senate in 2013 was about lowering interest rates for student loans. Why was that issue on your radar back then?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

EW:<\/strong> For me, it’s personal. My daddy was a janitor. My mom worked the phones at Sears. I wanted to be a schoolteacher, but that meant college and we didn’t have money to send me to school. I ended up at a wonderful state school that cost $50 a semester<\/a>. And that was the norm back then. This was in Texas \u2014 the University of Houston. Fifty bucks a semester. But it was similar to the price at the University of Oklahoma<\/a>, which I bring up because I grew up in Oklahoma. But it meant that for a price I could pay with a part-time waitressing job, I could get a four-year diploma and become a teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That door is locked tight for young people today. We have said two things to young people in America: One, you need some post-high school education if you’re going to make it in this country. And two, you’re on your own to figure out how to pay for it. It has become the policy of our government to load young people up on debt so that they can get an education. That educational opportunity that cost $50 a semester let me become solidly middle class. Today, kids whose families can’t write a check to send them off to college load up on debt and watch the gap between themselves and their better-off friends widen instead of narrow. The path for people who were born into modest circumstances has become harder and steeper over the past few decades. I’m in this fight because I want every young person in America to have an opportunity like I had \u2014 a chance to get the education they need without getting crushed by student loan debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV:<\/strong><\/em> One of the big things for<\/strong> Teen Vogue<\/strong><\/em>‘s audience is that folks are ready and willing to protest.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

EW:<\/strong> Yes! Now is the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV:<\/strong><\/em> Would you be supportive of protesting around this issue? Would you be supportive of a debt strike?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

EW:<\/strong> I am all in<\/em> for young people to find every way humanly possible to raise their voices. The White House is making a decision now. We need to be heard \u2014 all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Want more from<\/strong> Teen Vogue<\/strong><\/em>? Check this out:<\/strong> College Enrollment Numbers Are Tanking for Good Reason<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story is published as part of\u00a0Teen Vogue\u2019s 2022\u00a0Economic Security Project fellowship. \u201cNow is the time,\u201d the senator tells Teen Vogue. BY\u00a0JACQUI GERMAIN JANUARY 24, 2022 (teenvogue.com) On the eve of the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, President Biden held a two-hour-long press conference. The final reporter to speak asked a simple… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21230,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21229\/revisions\/21230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}