Student Union
Biden Plans to Forgive Some Federal Student Loans
President Joe Biden plans to make sweeping changes for students who borrow loans from the federal government, which could result in major relief for many younger Americans.
As of 2019, about one-third of Americans younger than 30 held student loan debt, according to the Pew Research Center. The average debt load was $29,200 in 2018, according to The Institute for College Access and Success. Those with student loans are more likely to report struggling financially, according to Pew.
According to Federal Student Aid, an office of the Department of Education, the outstanding student loan debt is over $1.5 trillion, held by 42.9 million people. The government limits federal borrowing by undergrads to $31,000 for students who receive contributions from their parents, and $57,500 for students who are independent, according to the Brookings Institution.
“Those who owe more than that almost always have borrowed for graduate school,” Brookings explained.
It’s important to quantify student debt, Brookings said. Most undergrads finish college with little or modest debt. About 30% of undergrads leave school with no debt, and about 25% with less than $20,000, it reported.
“Despite horror stories about college grads with six-figure debt loads, only 6% of borrowers owe more than $100,000 — and they owe about one-third of all the student debt,” Brookings wrote in January 2020.
The Biden plan
Under Biden’s plan, individuals making $25,000 or less per year would not have to make loan payments, and interest would not accrue on these loans.
His plan does not say if the $25,000 income is based on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), a U.S. government application through which students apply for and receive federal loans. FAFSA loans are determined by the college attended and are calculated using the income of the student and their contributing parents. It is unclear if parents who claim and receive tax deductions for their dependents will lose that deduction.
Biden’s plan does not address the Direct PLUS loan that allows parents to take out loans to help undergraduate students pay for higher education.
As his website states, those who make over this cap will “pay 5% of their discretionary income (income minus taxes and essential spending like housing and food) over $25,00 toward their loans.” Individuals with both new or existing loans would automatically be enrolled in this income-based program.
After 20 years, those “who have responsibly made payments through the program will be 100% forgiven,” the site said. It is not explained what “responsible” means in this instance.
For public servants, Biden wants to create a program that “offers $10,000 of undergraduate or graduate student debt relief for every year of national or community service, up to five years,” according to his website. Those who work in schools, nonprofit settings and government will automatically be enrolled in this program.
A November 2020 survey from the Data for Progress asked 1,087 likely voters about this plan. Out of those who identified as Democrats, 48% strongly supported the idea; 26% of Republicans strongly opposed.
Included in Biden’s plan is fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program by passing the What You Can Do For Your Country Act of 2019, spearheaded by Democratic Senators Tim Kaine and Kirsten Gillibrand, that would “ensure millions of teachers, social workers, members of the military, first responders, nurses, public defenders, and many other public service professionals will qualify for the loan forgiveness they have earned.”
Biden will extend emergency relief implemented in March 2020 by former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos until October, that suspended loan payments, halted collections on defaulted loans and set interest rates to 0% for 60 days because of the pandemic.
Biden has announced plans to tackle college affordability, as well. He plans to make university’s tuition-free for those whose families earn less than $125,000 a year. Biden also wants to double the federal Pell Grant, awarded to students who demonstrate exceptional financial need. The maximum amount for the award is $6,345 for the 2020-21 academic year and is not repaid.
The president said he wants to take extra steps to crack down on private lenders, expand post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, and invest in institutions that serve students of color, like Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions.
Other ideas
Other Democrats have advocated for more extensive relief.
Since September, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer have called for President Biden to — through executive order — forgive $50,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers under the Higher Education Act. The plan would make sure that there is no tax liability for the borrowers upon cancellation.
“For tens of millions of borrowers, student loan debt has become an impossible burden,” Warren said in December. “I just want to give you all some numbers. Nearly 43 million Americans are buried under $1.5 trillion of federal student loan debt. Close to 9 million of those borrowers are in default.”
At Columbia University, a private Ivy League school in New York, students have organized a tuition strike.
Willem Morris, an organizer with Columbia’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, said that students became inspired after watching other Ivy League institutions cut tuition. In July 2020, Princeton announced it would discount its tuition by 10%.
“But students saw the concessions other schools are making and saw that Columbia again, was going to charge the same price for these Zoom classes in this economic crisis,” Morris told VOA. “And students have decided that they don't want to accept this anymore.”
More than 4,100 students have signed on to this tuition strike, according to Morris. Columbia had already waived late fees to those who do not pay their tuition on time, Morris explained.
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College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
