I can't begin to remember how many posts I did over the four years of the Biden 'presidency' (and I use that term lightly) that dealt with the chaos his pandering to people with student loans was causing.
The administration's pandering was shameless and baldly obvious, twisting itself in knots to reinvent a new 'forgiveness program' as each Supreme Court rejection of a previous forgiveness scheme rolled back on them. Through it all, student loan payments remained 'paused,' without any impact on credit scores for non-payment thanks to a pandemic-era blanket policy.
...Even CNN is on record labeling it a bald-faced political gambit. The administration, you see, wants to "remind everyone" how awesomely awesome they are at handing out other people's money.
...The emails come as the Biden administration is eager to remind voters in an election year about how it has approved more student debt cancellation than under any other president – despite the fact that the Supreme Court knocked down its broad student loan forgiveness program last year...
By June two years ago, as the election madness was heating up, old POTATUS was dumping federal dollars into promised student loan forgiveness like there was no tomorrow, patently buying votes from progressive sluggards with private college liberal arts degrees and half a million in loans outstanding.
Failed college grads grifting millions by forcing honest, hard working people to pay the bills they signed up for. For what? Votes?
— Erich Hartmann (@erichhartmann) May 22, 2024
Fuck all these people.
No worries. It was just money.
The fact that you even had to explain this is proof of why financial literacy classes should be required in every school in America https://t.co/8ga0OHafpH
— Darvio Morrow (@DTheKingpin) June 20, 2024
By September of that year, as the auguries were shifting to signal perhaps Democrats wouldn't keep the White House, gentle hints started flowing from media outlets and financial analysts that it was time to look at your loan balance and realize the good times might be up. Required payments had resumed earlier, but there was still no credit score penalty attached for late or insufficient payments. However, that also was fixin' to change as of October 1, 2024.
The days of livin' large and forgetting all about the quarter mil you owed were over, and Uncle Joe was out of firepower to fulfill any of the last-minute get-out-of-debt-free promises so many people had banked on.
In April of 2025, the noose was tightening, and Linda McMahon's Department of Education announced it would resume collection enforcement on past-due and severely delinquent student loans.
Keep in mind, during the entire period of the payment pause, there was no interest accruing, no payments required, and no adverse credit reports. As I said at the time, what would a savvy borrower have done with a no-interest break like that?
...You'd think that it might be a perfect time to start making some progress on a loan and knock the balance down, basically free of charge.
But, no. That's not what these people did. What monies should have been their student loan payments became additional monthly income they were soon loath to part with.
...All those degrees, so little responsibility or common sense.
So much money wasted on so few brains.
YIKES: Only 38% of student loan borrowers are up-to-date on their payments.
— Angela Morabito (@AngelaLMorabito) April 21, 2025
Even after a 3.5 year payment pause...
4 million borrowers are between 3-6 months behind
5 million are 9+ months behind pic.twitter.com/dK87h3oZbh
Some people found this 'pay what you owe' concept very upsetting.
Lemme break this down so chicks like this can capiche:
— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) April 24, 2025
Buying a dress with a credit card that you're now too fat to fit into doesn't mean you don't have to pay for the dress. https://t.co/yLH7PLduPu
Many of these people are still in denial and, oh, are they angry.
But at the wrong person.
Check out this now deleted Xweet and tell me if you can figure out where the college graduate - a lawyer - deserves a pity party.
I'm going to take a stab in the dark here and guess that while JennD in KC had a pretty impressive loan balance (with a ridiculously low minimum payment), she never dropped a single dime, if anything, on that for the entirety of the pandemic pause and its grace period extensions.
If she was diligently making a dent in that balance every single month at more than $32 a payment, I apologize.
How do you pay off a $145K loan with only a monthly payment of $32 at 6.5%?
— Black Inc (@BlackincBets) July 1, 2026
#MathzIzHard
But what are the odds?
And now it's suddenly Donald Trump's fault that - with, I'm also assuming - probably missed payment penalties, and interest accrual resuming (which on $145K balance would be substantial), etc - she's damn near doubled what she owes.
WHY DID DONALD TRUMP DO THIS TO ME?!
She's smart enough to be a lawyer, but completely oblivious to how this happened to her?
That was wasted tuition money right there.
But, in JennD from KC's defense (if you can call it that), there are plenty of student loan borrowers who have happily floated around the POTATUS ether as if they hadn't a care or a debt in the world.
'TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE,' says one financial advisor, who is now ready to help these infants claw their way through the next round of regulatory changes taking effect, oh...this morning.
..."If you have not been paying attention to your loans for four, five, six years, totally understandable. But now is the time to make sure your contact information is up to date," he said. "Make sure you have your login with studentaid.gov."
VURT DA 'TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE' FURK?!
'Not paid attention' to maybe hundreds of thousands in debt for almost six years?
Blows my mind.
Well, playtime is over. I don't know how these pathetic, helplessly inept creatures are going to handle it, except whine louder.
Major changes to federal student loan rules take effect on Wednesday, July 1, that will limit how much Americans can borrow and their repayment options.
The overhaul, made under the 2025 "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," will affect millions of people who take out loans to finance their education.
"These are the most changes we have seen at this scale in a very long time," said Sarah Austin, a policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a nonprofit membership organization.
The U.S. Department of Education described the overhaul as a way to streamline the student loan system, which currently consists of seven repayment plans, and rein in student loan debt, which stands at almost $1.9 trillion.
Borrowers enrolled in the Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan are among those affected as the Trump administration moves to wind down the program and shift borrowers into new repayment options. Loan payments for the roughly 7.2 million people enrolled in SAVE have been on pause for two years as a legal battle over the program's fate played out.
Borrowers should talk to their loan servicers, and students should look to their financial aid office for assistance as they navigate the transition, experts said. They can also consult online calculators such as this one, from the New York state-funded Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program, to help determine which repayment option makes the most sense.
In what seems like cruel and unusual punishment, there are now federal loan borrowing limits, instead of being able to grab money hand over fist.
...One major change is to the Parent PLUS loan program, which allows parents to take out a federal loan for their child's undergraduate education. Historically, parents could borrow up to the full cost of attending a school. Starting July 1, parents will be capped at $20,000 a year and $65,000 total per student.
...New borrowing limits will also affect graduate students and those pursuing professional degrees. Grad students will still be able to take out up to $20,500 per year. But beginning July 1, a new cap will prevent them from taking out more than $100,000 for their degree.
The "big beautiful bill" also affects people pursuing professional degrees, including those in pharmacy, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, theology and clinical psychology, according to the Department of Education. Under the new rules, students in those fields are restricted to borrowing $50,000 per year and $200,000 total.
...Finally, aside from a few carveouts, anyone who gets a loan on or after July 1 will have a lifetime loan cap of $257,500, according to the Education Department.
"That's per borrower, so over the course of your educational experience, stacking undergrad and grad, that is going to be your cap," Berkman-Breen said.
Naturally, this has the expensive degrees squawking - nurses, doctors, law schools that put out fine intellectual products like...well. But this could also be fixed in a couple of ways. Let student loan debt be dischargeable in bankruptcy (it is not now) and force colleges to have skin in the game. Get the government out of it eventually.
Many of these universities have billion-dollar endowments or more administrative staff than educators - they can straighten their own house and help the students they're supposed to be 'educating,' not feeding off of.
There's lots of room going forward, but in the meantime, there are people who had no intention of paying debts they freely incurred, every intention of having the taxpayer pay them for them, and, even as it becomes more and more apparent that life is not going to go their way?
They are doing nothing to adjust their attitudes to 'responsible adult.'
They'll just scream TRUMP! louder.
I don't think there's any more damning indictment of the higher education system than that.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and bold policies, America’s economy is back on track.
Help us continue to report on the president’s economic successes and combat the lies of the Democrats. Join HotAir VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member