Photo: Jim Watson for Getty Images
On January 20th 2021, I became content with being an American again for the first time in four years. Not happy, but content. I was upset and ashamed about being an American for the past four years, directly because of former president Donald Trump. Trump is arguably the worst president of all time and generally just an incompetent idiot all around.
Our new president is former Vice President Joe Biden. Although I would have loved to have seen Bernie Sanders in the role personally, I digress. Of course we all have fair reasons to celebrate the start of the new presidency, however, it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, President Biden is much better than Trump and yes, he makes many promising claims for the future. Still, accountability is the key to making those claims become realities.
Several of the claims that most college students should pay attention to are those concerning student loans. On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order to extend the current pause on all student loan payments and place interest rates at zero percent through September 2021.
I am someone who currently has and will have a staggering amount of student loans in my future. Yes, I chose to have these student loans, but it was the only way for me to afford college at any of the schools I got into. Then again, does anybody really choose to have student loans? I do not really think so, for many it is the only way to afford college, a near necessity to getting a job in the current world we live in.
I greatly appreciate and am thankful for the extension of the pause on payments and interest on the loans, even though I am not paying them off anytime soon. It is nice to not have to worry about the incurring interest on said loans for a little while longer.
Biden has also stated he has many plans in place for bettering the cost of college in America. Many of these have to do with free public and community colleges, which of course do not affect any of us at Illinois Wesleyan, which is a private school.
Another student-associated plan I would like to focus on, that would affect all private or public school students, is the student loan forgiveness program. Such a program would erase, cancel, $10,000 or more in federal student loans per person. And $10,000 is not a small chunk of change so to speak. Although it may only be $10,000 out of for example say $100,000 in student loan debt, it is most definitely better than nothing.
Biden claims that this is what he plans to create an executive order for, but there is a good chance that may not even happen. It is a common fact that presidents say things during their campaigns, yet such claims never become realities. The key to making such a dream come true is to keep President Biden accountable.
“The key to making such a dream come true is to keep President Biden accountable. He needs to keep to his claims, the claims that got him into office, to do what he said he would.”
He needs to keep to his claims, the claims that got him into office, to do what he said he would.
If he wants to be known as the president that cleaned up America after the mess Trump made, he must be held accountable. He promised to make this student loan forgiveness program happen, to make college more accessible and affordable for everyone. Of course student loan forgiveness is not the priority program to pass right now, compared to rolling out COVID-19 vaccines and a mask mandate, it should still remain on the back burner.