New Education Secretary: Will it make a difference?

bluebayou
Thu, 01 Dec 2016 16:12:10 +0000

The loan program that will get a lot of fast attention. (I can’t wait for the articles in the NYT about lawyers and docs making high six figures about to have the balances on grad loans forgiven. Yeah, I get the math and that the forgiveness maybe mostly interest, but its the optics that won’t look good to the press, particualrly since headlines generally don’t leave room for nuance or math.)

The GAO report finds that estimates of the cost to the government of income-driven repayment plans – which eventually discharge a student’s remaining debt after 20 years or more of payments – has jumped from $28 billion to $53 billion for student loans issued from 2009 to 2016. And it found that nearly a third of student loan debt expected to be repaid via income-driven repayments ($108 billion) will be forgiven by the federal government through programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness.