OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
Rep. James Clyburn defended President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, arguing it is not giving away money because many recipients had already paid back their original loans several times over due to interest.
He cited a letter from a man who took out a $60K loan that he paid $200K toward but still owed $119K.
Clyburn said the program forgives remaining debt people already accumulated significant payments on.
Rep. Clyburn said, “I think we need to explain to people what is going to happen going forward. It’s one thing to eliminate the loan, the debt that’s already been accumulated.”
He explained, “What they did yesterday, about 1.5 billion, that’s added on top of the 137 billion that has already been forgiven. Going forward, every two months, for the next four years, another 75,000 people will become eligible for this forgiveness.”
Clyburn said, “And I want to say to your listeners, this is not giving anybody’s money away. One gentleman wrote the President a letter, sent me a copy of it. His original loan was $60,000, some 25 years ago. And with compounding interest and everything else, what happened with COVID, he ended up paying back $200,000 and still owed 119,000. So what the President did was forgive the rest of that 119,000.”
“But he had already paid $200,000 on what was a $60,000 loan,” exclaimed the lawmaker.
He concluded, “That’s what has happened all over this country. And when the President, he forgave the loans that people made to go to these fly-by-night institutions like Trump University that took their money and didn’t give them the education and training that they said they would give them, and they still had to pay off the loan. The President forgave that. And so, this is what the President is doing, trying to reconcile what had happened before, and trying to get people back on even footing. So, he’s not taking any money away from anybody. And so, when I hear people on these programs saying, well, I paid mine back, they ought to pay theirs back. They have already paid back, in some instances, ten times over.”
It also forgives loans some took out for “fly-by-night” schools that failed to deliver as promised.
Clyburn argued critics claiming others should also have to pay back loans overlook that borrowers have already repaid their original amounts.
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