By: Ashirah Newton
With the election of Donald Trump to a second term in office, the future of student loan debt relief is now more uncertain than ever. Generation Z, the youngest in the workforce, is grappling with high inflation rates and student loan debt increases.
With student loans accounting for 30 percent of Generation Z’s total debts, students are delaying joining the workforce thus delaying repayment of loans, according to the Education Data Initiative. This election season these young voters wrestled with which presidential nominees would bring the changes for borrowers like them.
Nearly 43 million Americans owe a whopping $1.63 trillion dollars in student debt, according to the Government Accountability Office. Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration approved over $160 billion — about $490 per person in the US — in student debt relief towards four million Americans. Generation Z was not a recipient of those funds.
“One of my life goals is to pursue more than a four-year college degree, aiming for a Master’s in the psychological field,” said Tasha Banserajh, a York College student majoring in Psychology. “However, as a middle-class student, I worry about the heavy burden of student loan debt, especially with the inflated costs of graduate school. My fear is being stuck paying off loans for the rest of my life.”
She was hopeful that presidential candidate Kamala Harris would have supported the Biden administration’s efforts at making people less likely to shoulder lifelong student debt they cannot pay off. This was significant to Banserajh because while she does not have student loan debt, she is worried about accumulating it over time to reach her dream career.
Harris had said if she assumed office, she would have built on the policies implemented by and with President Joe Biden and work to provide student debt relief to millions of borrowers by expanding the income-driven repayment plans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness plans currently available.
For example, income-driven repayment plans base your monthly student loan payment amount on yearly income and the size of an individual’s family. There are four plans in total — the Pay as You Earn (PAYE) repayment plan, the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan, the Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR) plan, and the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan.
On the other hand, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness forgives federal student loans of borrowers employed by the government or certain non-profit organizations after 10 years of on-time payments or 120 qualifying monthly payments. This effort has led to the forgiveness of over $62 billion in student loan debt.
In contrast, president-elect Donald Trump has opposed student loan forgiveness. During his campaign he promised to restrict the student loan forgiveness programs passed under the Biden-Harris administration while promoting student access to non-traditional degrees. On top of that he made statements criticizing Joe Biden’s efforts to green light the cancellation of student debt, exclaiming that Biden’s attempts were “not legal” and “vile.”
Trump in a rally back in June, said that the Biden administration’s 2023 attempt at widespread student loan forgiveness, shut down by the Supreme Court was “Him being rebuked, and then he did it again.” In the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Harris, Trump said “They didn’t even come close to getting student loans. They taunted young people and a lot of other people that had loans, they can never get this approved.”
A March 2024 “Protect Borrowers Action” poll showed that half of the voters surveyed thought canceling student debt was a principal issue in the election.
Among younger voters and people of color that perspective increased to 66 percent. The student debt crisis goes back to the 1980s, when the cost of college education skyrocketed dramatically as state governments did less to help residents pay for their college tuition costs. This underfunding causing state reductions began in 1981. Due to the dwindling involvement of state governments, this has caused student debt to exponentially increase in the 1990s and 2000s, leading to the massive trillion-dollar deficit that has come to exist in the 2010s and 2020s.
“If student loan forgiveness is expanded, it will be easier for us to continue through our lives and spread awareness, spread education, spread economic growth, and spread many diverse types of resources to improve this world,” said Zoaa Albaadani, 20. The Political Science major burdened with student loan debt said she planned to vote for Harris. She had more confidence that student loan forgiveness would have been expanded if Harris was sworn into office.
However, some young voters were skeptical about whether student loan debt forgiveness policies will be implemented further despite being in support of the proposition. “I am skeptical. While loan forgiveness is a popular idea, implementing it on a large scale can be difficult, and promises often can go unfulfilled,” said Kenzai Sinclair who is a student and senator in the Student Government Association at York College.
Despite strong support for loan forgiveness among young voters, Trump won and uncertainty remains over the government’s commitment to follow through with these policies. “I feel this way because of the many hurdles we have faced,” said sophomore Whitney Okpor. “We have been promised this for four years, but it keeps getting turned down. Even if it does happen, it will not be enough, though I hope I am proven wrong. I would be confident, but I know the government will probably not enact student loan forgiveness.”
Many young voters may have the same perspective as Sinclair and Okpor because many campaign promises are left unfulfilled or are met with roadblocks preventing any substantial progress
