The Student Loan Extension, are we here for it?

The Student Loan extension to May 1 but no solution to the bigger crisis

Since March of 2020, the US Department of Education has put a pause on student loan payments due to the circumstances of the world-wide pandemic. Payment was expected to resume at the start of 2022; however, the Biden Administration has moved that date to May 1, 2022.

And while the extra-time and a bit of relief is somewhat helpful, most of us are wondering if student loans will ever end. “Forty-three million Americans have student loan debt — that’s one in 8 Americans (12.9%), according to an analysis of May 2021 census data.” Student loan debt far outpaces credit card and auto loans. Before the pandemic, outstanding student loan debt had surpassed $1.7 trillion. 

But the truth is, most people are not ready to go back to paying on these loans. Not because they don’t want to, but because they’re simply not financially stable enough. Even those who worked throughout the pandemic have concerns on how they are going to start making payments.

So why hasn’t student loans been canceled?

President Biden has previously made questionable statements on whether the government should pay for the educations of privileged students who have gone to Penn State or Yale. His statement being that it doesn’t make sense to cancel loans “for people who have gone to Harvard and Yale and Penn.”

But in actuality, “just 0.3% of federal student borrowers attended Ivy League colleges.” Which isn’t surprising because there are only a few Ivy Leagues in comparison to the thousands of public, private, and for-profit schools. The truth is that student loans disproportionately affect low-income, low-wealth, students of color. So who knows what President Biden was going on about.

The student loan extension is not enough to solve the student debt crisis. But is the government even trying to solve it?