
Student debt has become a rising issue across America over the past couple of decades. Throughout the country more than 40 million Americans suffer from student loan debt, and will continue to pay it off for most of their adult lives. These 40 million Americans combined have amassed an astonishing, 1.3 trillion dollars in student loan debt. Many students in this year’s graduating class will graduate with an average of over $37,000 in student loans for them to conquer. After hearing these outrageous statistics, the question arises, well what’s the easiest and fastest way to pay off this debt? Recent presidential runner-up, Hillary Clinton along with other government agencies, had a plan that they believed would solve this student debt crisis once and for all in America. 

Throughout her journey to become president Hillary Clinton’s campaign had a lot of time and effort invested in the idea of making college affordable for everyone and figuring out a solution to rising student loan debt levels. Not only was this a big talking point and focus point for Clinton but also for her opponent in the democratic primary, Senator Bernie Sanders. For Sanders his plan focused on trying to make public colleges and universities completely tuition free and hope to significantly lower interest rates. In a debate from the Democratic primary Bernie Sanders proposed, “to put a speculation tax on wall street, raise very substantial sums of money, not only make public colleges and universities tuition-free, but also substantially lower interest rates on student debt.” (Sanders 2015) While this sounds great and many people love to hear the words free and college tuition in the same sentence it seems almost impossible. Clinton responding by saying while she believes in significantly lowering interest rates making college completely free is a near impossible feat. Her plan focuses on making public colleges and universities completely debt free by focusing on the middle class. However, she first wants to focus on solving the existing debt by focusing solely on interest rates and forgiveness programs.

Clinton’s plan on conquering the rising loan debt in America is founded on the idea of lowering interest rates for the borrowers that are stuck in their debt now. Her proposed plan would “allocate roughly $115 billion to student loan forgiveness and would provide potential benefits to over 60% of individuals with student loans.” (Student Debt Relief, 2016) This means that about 25 million borrowers would then be forgiven of their student debt and be completely debt free. The other roughly 15-20 million other borrowers are also included Mrs. Clinton’s plan, but unfortunately don’t get as good of a deal that the others received. While their debt won’t be forgiven it will be much easier for the borrowers to pay off and help them become debt free faster and save them money. These other borrowers will be given the chance to refinance the remainder of their debt at newer and more current rates, which will be significantly lower than what they face now. Now many looking at Clinton’s plan at first glance may see the relief that current graduates are experiencing and wonder what she has in plan for the students graduating this year and the years to come.

The second part of Clinton’s plan focuses on helping the students that will graduate this year and the students graduating in the years to come. First off one of the key goals is to allow borrowers a “three-month moratorium” (SDR, 2016) for all student loan payments to give recent graduates time to work with the Department of Education. This time to work with the Department of Education will allow them to discuss consolidation, refinancing, and talk about multiple plans for repayment. Secondly her plan will shorten any repayment plans that are income-based to a 20-year student loan forgiveness plan which is how the department of education’s bill plans to deal with the student debt in America.

About a year ago Time Magazine featured an article that focused on the idea of the significant student loan debt in America and a new proposed plan from the National Department of Education. The National Department of Education’s plan almost mirrors the second part of Mrs. Clinton’s plan as explained above. It focuses on the refinancing of loans and placing limits on the interest rates that lenders can impose on borrowers and setting a year limit that these loans have to be repaid. For the Department of education these yearly limits range from 10-25 years and are determined by the employment that the borrower holds and whether or not it is in the public service sector.

The National Department of Education’s plan is called the Income Driven Repayment plan and it focuses on capping interest rates and providing more affordable monthly payments for borrowers. These payments will be determined by a percentage of your monthly income and will have capped interest rates. This is possible simply from the fact that now the federal government along with the NDE have become the direct lenders to students. This move was described as getting “rid of the costly middleman,’ says Robert Shireman, who was Deputy Under Secretary of the Department of Education at the time.” (TIME Authors, 2015) This means that instead of students going through privately owned lenders with outrageous interest rates and high monthly payments they can go straight to the government who are providing forgiveness plans and other student debt relief services. The department of education’s plan lets people pay for a certain number of years and once that time is up their remaining debt will be forgiven and paid by the federal government. This allows for many people to live knowing that won’t be stuck in debt for the remainder of their adult life. 

Overall the plans imposed not only by Mrs. Clinton but the federal government have very beneficial parts to them, but they leave people with many questions on their mind. Many people look at how much people will be forgiven and wonder where is all the money for that going to come from? Also the National Department of Education’s plan is also moving to not only cover and forgive the debts of those with bachelor’s degrees but those that went on and received their masters and other higher qualifications. So how is all of this going to be paid for by the government, well tax dollars of course. This means that many tax payers could see a raise on their taxes which, understandably, angers many people. You see, this may people think well why do I have to pay extra on my taxes for my doctor’s education while also feeding his multi hundred-thousand-dollar salary for the care he provided me. On top of taxes rising what about those that their parents maybe make a little too much and don’t qualify for the government to help them, but their parents money while there is enough may be tied up that it can’t be used for college. If they go through a private lender will their debt be forgiven or not because it has no connection with the federal government? This leaves many Americans hopeful but also weary of all the hype of loan forgiveness and relief plans.

With student loan debt rising and this rise being seemingly ending because of rising tuition over the years, it seemed like the elephant in the room that many people seem to ignore or forget about. All our child and adolescent years are filled with parents, family, and friends encouraging us to attend college and “do the right thing” and get a degree so that our lives will be “better”. While yes it is almost essential to go to college nowadays to obtain a decent job many are scared or worried that it’s something that will never be a reality for them. Also for many people in certain fields a regular degree isn’t enough, you have to get our masters or doctorates which is just more money that has to be borrowed. So now that the government and even presidential candidates focusing on the issue, it seems that college may begin to become a reality for many Americans. However, these plans need to find a happy medium between helping those that need it while not hurting everyone else.
