CLEVELAND, Ohio — Monday, students and supporters alike gathered outside the US Department of Education in Washington.
Protesters urged our country's top brass to cancel student debt and Rachel Collyer with the Ohio Student Association was among the crowd.
“There was a big impact of so many people coming from around the country on Monday to protest,” said Collyer.
On Tuesday, the Biden Administration announced the sixth extension on federal student loan payments until August 31.
“If [Biden] can push [student loan payments] back two years why can’t he just cancel it outright,” asked Collyer. “The benefits would be manifold and that's what we're calling on the president to do, what he said he would do and release millions of Americans from this enormous burden of student loan debt.”
Just over two years ago, President Biden tweeted his support for forgiving a minimum of $10,000 in federal student loan debt, but the president has never said he supported canceling student loan debt in full.
Additionally, we should forgive a minimum of $10,000/person of federal student loans, as proposed by Senator Warren and colleagues. Young people and other student debt holders bore the brunt of the last crisis. It shouldn't happen again.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 22, 2020
“This would make inflation worse, this would add to the deficit and would continue an emergency measure that no longer makes sense,” said Marc Goldwein with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “This would be a giveaway, disproportionately going to doctors, lawyers and other wealthy individuals with advanced degrees.”
According to Policy Matters Ohio, there are 1.7 million students in Ohio who combined have more than $63 billion in outstanding student loan debt, and more than 300,000 of those students are in delinquency.
Pete van Lier with Policy Matters Ohio said the student loan crisis affects Black people disproportionately.
“When you look at the average time it takes to pay off a debt, black people end up paying much longer and they have higher loans of debt over time,” said van Lier.
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