Biden’s student loan forgiveness is cause for celebration

I have about $280,000 in student loans from law school. I am eight years into a 25-year loan repayment plan. If I continue making monthly payments from now until 2039, the loans are forgiven — whether my debt is completely paid off or not.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced a plan to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for borrowers who make $125,000 or less per year, as well as for households earning $250,000 or less per year. The president will also extend the ongoing federal student loan payment pause for several more months.

» READ MORE: What would Biden’s $10,000 student loan forgiveness mean for you? Tell us your story.

I’ll be honest: $10,000 in loan forgiveness does nothing for me. I will still be paying off my loans for another 17 years, and will likely never reach zero before the balance is forgiven under my repayment plan.

But I can say confidently that the student loan forgiveness announcement is good news. This isn’t about me, it’s about the small borrowers. Nationwide, 33% of borrowers carrying student debt owe $10,000 or less. Their lives are about to be immeasurably changed, for the better.

Anyone who tells you that “everyone should suffer” because they suffered, or their parents suffered (they paid off their loans or paid for school outright), or that they will continue to suffer (like me, they have way more debt than this loan forgiveness will be able to effectively address) is just selfish, jealous, and bitter. Don’t let them take away from what is a momentous day for millions of Americans, approximately 15 million of whom will have their loans totally forgiven. This is cause for celebration.

» READ MORE: Biden student loan forgiveness: Who’s eligible, what’s the income limit, and how will it work?

The student debt crisis in America is a systemic issue that won’t be solved by loan forgiveness. Student loans are predatory in nature, preying on literal children who are told they must take out loans to secure their futures. As long as student loans are necessary to embark on a path to higher education in this country, millions of Americans will continue to be indentured to the student loan industry and to the government itself. All of that being said, loan forgiveness is a good thing.

Approximately half of student debtors owe less than $20,000. This is not a lot when looking at the loans carried by doctors, lawyers, MBA holdovers, and the like. But that is not who this forgiveness is intended to help. This helps the people who have been making payments for the past 20 years and are close to having their loans paid off. This helps those people who scrunched and saved and still had trouble affording “affordable” public schools.

“Nothing could be more callous than making someone else suffer so they can share in your pain.”

I will be in debt for the better part of my life. There is nothing but full student debt forgiveness that can save me from that fate. But what about people on the margins — those who went to school because they were told that is what they had to do, even if they couldn’t afford it and even if the degree they earned had no chance of ensuring them a high-paying job to pay off the loans they took out to secure that degree? Those are the people this forgiveness will help — and it will help them in huge ways.

With inflation and uneven wage growth in this country, taking a few hundred dollars in loan payments out of people’s budgets each month is nothing to sneeze at. But there will always be naysayers and cynics. Just because one person was the victim of a predatory loan scheme doesn’t mean we should encumber the lives of others to make things “fair” or “even.” Nothing could be more callous than making someone else suffer so they can share in your pain.

» READ MORE: Opinion | I am one of 43 million Americans in student debt

There is still so much work to do in reforming the system that has trapped approximately 43 million Americans into endless payments — and endlessly accruing interest. Free public schools and issuing more grants rather than loans for students who need help are a start. However, these are just policy points bandied out by politicians and activists when discussing the student debt crisis. None of them is near to being actionable legislation.

Forgiveness is what we have for now, and we should be thankful for it, while also recognizing that it is just a starting place for future reforms.

Is $10,000 enough for everyone? No. Is it better than nothing? Absolutely.

Gregory R. Sarafan is a civil litigator working in the real estate industry from Jersey City, N.J. He is married to his husband of six years and spends his free time managing teams of volunteers across the Northeast and Midwest registering voters for the nonpartisan voter registration organization HeadCount. @GSarafan

» READ MORE: Debt is bad for mental health. Relief from Biden’s student loan forgiveness could take time.