Tag: student debt
How the Government Cancelled Betty Ann’s Debts
On August 2nd, Betty Ann, who is ninety-one years old, was having a slow morning. She woke up late, flicked on the news, and shuffled around the kitchen of her suburban Philadelphia apartment, fixing coffee. Suddenly, from the TV in the other room, she heard Whoopi Goldberg on “The View,” saying Betty Ann’s name, her age, and the dollar amount that she owed in student debt. Goldberg was reading from an article that I had written about the rise of
Who Really Benefits From Student-Loan Forgiveness?
In March 2020, the government stopped bugging me—and 40 million other Americans—for student-loan payments. It also stopped collecting interest on outstanding debt. And with so many other things to worry about, I largely stopped thinking about that debt. Some survey data indicate that many of my peers became similarly disengaged. Two years later, one estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget suggests that $5,500 per borrower has been effectively canceled, largely because of the lack of interest that