After months of internal debates and in the midst of the campaign for midterm elections, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced this Wednesday (24) that will forgive part of the debt of formation of university students with the government. Republicans, however, denounce the “gift” given to Americans as an unfair and electoral measure.
About 43 million Americans have study financing debts. On average, each of them owes 43 a thousand dollars (almost 189 a thousand reais). Total student debt in the United States is $1.6 trillion.
Following election promises from two years ago, Biden announced that up to 20 one thousand dollars (more than 100 thousand reais) will be deducted from the debts of students or former students of the federal education system that have an individual annual income of up to 125 one thousand dollars (approximately 638 thousand reais) or family income of twice that amount.
“My administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle-class families some breathing room,” Biden said on Twitter.
Opposition to Biden highlights that the president’s bill is unfair, because Millions of Americans don’t go to college because they can’t commit to these debts.
“The millions of Americans who graduated from college, lived modestly and dispensed with extravagant dinners and vacations so they could pay correctly the debt is are wondering why they won’t get that discount”, says Lindsey Burke, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Educational Policy, in an article published in the Daily Signal.
She points to the data presented by the secretary Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who show that Biden’s initiative will have inflationary effects, especially in the rise of university tuition. Federal subsidies have allowed colleges to raise prices over the past few decades and further strain the government. Since the 1991 school year, total federal aid (including student loans and grants) has increased 295%.
In an article published in American newspaper National Review, the writer Charles Cooke questions why this “forgiveness” is not also directed to other professionals and other types of debts of citizens. “Because Joe Biden and his party believe that college students are better than everyone else,” quips Cooke.
Public policy analyst Inez Stepman comments, in a video published by the PragerU portal, that Biden’s measure “is like taking from the poor and giving to the rich.” About 70% of this debt forgiveness benefits the 24% of students from higher-income families, who were able to commit to these debts. According to Stepman, Biden’s plan “steals from the working class” to give alms “to woke culture”.
