Loan plan reactions mixed; many students look forward to relief, but politicians are critical

CASPER — President Joe Biden’s recently announced student loan forgiveness plan could bring welcome relief to some students in Wyoming.

“It’s going to help a lot of our students,” Brandy Payne, Laramie County Community College financial aid director, said. “We needed relief in the wake of the pandemic.”

But some are skeptical.

Wyoming’s Sen. John Barrasso said in a statement Wednesday that the plan is “an insult to every American who played by the rules and worked hard to responsibly pay off their own debt.”

“This decision is also a boon for Biden’s wealthy supporters,” he said. “Once again, the Biden administration is selling out working families to appease the far-left wing of the Democrat party.”

Likewise, Wyoming’s Sen. Cynthia Lummis said in a Wednesday statement that the plan is “incredibly unfair to the hardworking people of Wyoming,” and that it will add billions of dollars to the nation’s debt.

Biden announced the outline of his student loan forgiveness plan on Wednesday.

The plan only applies to students with federal loans who have an individual or married income of less than $125,000 and $250,000, respectively.

It will give Pell Grant recipients who fall under those criteria up to $20,000 in debt relief and cancel up to $10,000 in debt for non-Pell Grant recipients.

It’s also going to halve the cap on monthly payments for undergraduate loans from 10% of borrowers’ discretionary income (income leftover after paying taxes and essential cost-of-living expenses) to 5% of that income.

On top of that, the plan will extend the pause on federal student loan repayment through the end of the year.

There’s still a lot that has to be hammered out before it’s clear who exactly could benefit from the loan forgiveness plan; officials from several community colleges that the Star-Tribune reached out to said they can’t estimate how many students might be impacted because they don’t track student income, and there are still questions about who could qualify.

But some are already looking forward to what the debt forgiveness could mean for their own futures.

Gabe DeGraeve, a Casper native and third-year political science student at Belmont University in Tennessee, has about $15,000 in debt right now. He expects to be eligible for loan forgiveness under the new plan, based on the requirements that have been outlined so far.

“One of my big concerns is being able to find work and pay off that debt,” he said. “The chance for some of those loans to be forgiven is something that I’m very excited about and looking forward to.”

DeGraeve, who hopes to return to Wyoming in the future and work in politics, actually interned for Barrasso last summer in Washington, D.C.

“I’m not at all surprised by their reactions,” he said of Lummis and Barrasso’s denouncement of the loan forgiveness plan. “I think that no matter what happens, Lummis and Barrasso will be against policies of the Biden administration.”

Student debt is pretty low in Wyoming compared to other states. That’s because there are a lot of opportunities for students to get scholarships — like the Hathaway scholarship — or save money by going to community college.

Abby Gruner, a chemical engineering student at the University of Wyoming, said these kinds of opportunities influenced her decision to stay in state for school; she’s a Trustees’ Scholars Award recipient, meaning that her education at UW is completely covered.

Having her education completely paid for is the main reason why she chose to attend UW rather than her dream school, Pomona College, where she had also been accepted.

“Having such amazing scholarships to colleges in Wyoming is certainly a blessing, but I do feel like it inhibits new ideas from reaching the state because so many never have the opportunity to experience living outside the state,” Gruner said in a text message. “I am not sure if I would have chosen differently when deciding where to attend college had Biden’s plan been in place at the time, but I definitely would have taken it into consideration.”

For more than three years, student loan debt among UW graduates has stayed around 45%, according to the university’s spokesperson.

According to the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, about 38% of students there get federal loans, and the median total debt after graduation is $18,318.

Those numbers are lower at Wyoming’s community colleges.

At Laramie County Community College, for example, about 17% of students graduated with debt in the 2021 academic year, according to data kept by the college.

The U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard shows that the median total debt after graduation among students at the college is $10,500. (Remember, not everyone who graduates with debt from federal loans will have their debt canceled under the plan. They have to fall under certain criteria for that to happen).

Jessica Cowen, a second year Casper College student double majoring in psychology and musical theater, said in a text message that the plan could relieve students from “unnecessary stress.”

Although she doesn’t have any debt, she’s talked with other community college students who’ve had to take out loans.

“Classes already put a lot on our plates, and we do not need [added-on] obstacles that cause possible burnout,” she said.