Pittsburghers react to Supreme Court's ruling against student loan forgiveness
WASHINGTON (KKA) -- The Supreme Court ruled Friday 6-3 against President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. It promised to forgive up to $10,000 and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.
Just like the Supreme Court, people are divided on this as well. Some feel if you took out the loans, you need to pay them back. Others feel all these loans have done is put them in crippling debt.
As some expected based on past decisions by the court, student loans will not be helped.
"It would have been nice, but I wasn't holding my breath about it," Danny Jesus said.
This ruling impacts payments because people will have to pay back their full balance. To figure out what that is, you should check with your borrower. Make sure you check your interest rate as well.
"You've got to work. Hard work wins. Why should anyone get anything for free?" Charles Bonasorte said.
If you haven't made payments since they were put on pause more than three years ago, you will want to check and see if your handler changed. You can see this by logging into your federal student loan account.
"Is what it is. I signed up to pay the loan, I'm going to pay the loan," Mary Martinez said about paying off her daughter's student loans.
Matthew Whaley has $20,000 in loans and while he would have liked the money, he admits it would have cost the government a steep price. He also realizes this is going to be a burden for many.
"Financially, it's not sound for our nation. I don't know if it's fair to previous generations of college students. I don't know if the president should have that power to wipe it away," the Pitt grad student said. "It's going to hurt a lot of people, and it's really going to suck for a lot of people. I'm empathetic to that because it's going to hurt a lot of people who are worse off than me."
Kiani Perkins owes about $8,000, but her mother is upwards of $50,000. The hope of some forgiveness was going to be welcome for their budgets. It's recommended you sit down and see what you can pay. Income–driven repayment plans are available as well as others depending on your financial situation.
"Just even the 10 would have helped a tremendous amount so she would not have to worry about making those increasingly high payments," Perkins said about the SCOTUS decision.
The resumption of the payments was going to start on Sept. 1 no matter what the court ruled.
