Dear Biden: Student Loan Forgiveness Is Only Foreplay

There’s been a lot of back and forth and wishy-washiness from the Biden administration on the subject of student loan forgiveness. Since the pandemic started, numerous moratoriums on student loan payments have been instituted—the latest of which is set to end August 31st. Now is the time for Joe Biden to do something he’s done very rarely since he’s been in office: Sort of come through on a campaign promise, or get knuck-ish if he’s buck-ish.

When the president was running for office, he proposed to “forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two-and four-year public colleges and universities for debt-holders earning up to $125,000,” and to “immediately cancel a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person.” Biden has since walked this proposal way back after he’s gotten the votes and presidency to perhaps, maybe, wipe away $10,000 of federal student loan debt for borrowers who earn up to $125,000.

Thanks to intense pressure, you’ll likely see a big announcement from Biden's folks in the coming weeks about the status of student loan forgiveness that will be close to the aforementioned terms. Either that, or they’ll announce another deferral.

Student loan forgiveness would be a monumental win for huge swaths of Americans. College tuition is prohibitively expensive for far too many people without loans and the loans can leave college-educated people in low-paying fields drowning in debt. Gone are the days where you could wait tables and put yourself through law school.

Once more, if we really wanna talk about reparations, wiping all college debt for any Black person who is an American citizen would be a great start. And make all future tuition free. That’s the means test. Are you Black? Are you an American? Well institutional racism has probably impacted your life, so he’s a full ride to your school of choice. (Sadly, I can already imagine non-Black people trying to game the system a la Atlanta's "Rich Wigga, Poor Wigga" episode.)

Black people should not have to pay for higher education in the United States so long as there is a Unites States. If a college education is a necessity for upward mobility, then this is just one of the myriad of ways the state can repay its debt to Black people. Indigenous people too, because there’s not a single college in America that isn’t built on their land.