Political Quotes

“There are also things happening over at the U.S. Department of Education regarding higher education which are of great concern. On Thursday, the American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit in the District Court of Washington, D.C., basically asking the court to rule that the Department's foot-dragging in terms of discharging student loan debt through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program has got to come to an end. In 2007, we passed the College Class Reduction Act which set up a mechanism for those who serve in critical public service occupations, such as teaching, nurses, doctors, police, prosecutors, social workers, veterinarians, and people who work in nonprofit organizations. If they make their student loan payments consistently over a 10-year period, under the College Class Reduction Act, they could apply for a discharge of the balance of their student loan, recognizing that these are people who are going into occupations for which the payment of student loan debt can be too onerous. {time} 1215 So, 2007 was the year that this program was supposed to kick into effect. As the Government Accountability Office determined, since that period--and these are our figures from 2019--7,555 borrowers have submitted applications to have their loans discharged. Only 864 have been approved, and only 516 borrowers, less than 1 percent, have had their loans forgiven.…”