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Student Loan Forgiveness Is Complicated, Because This Is America



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If we want higher education to cost less, we should make it cheaper when people enroll.But that’s not how we do things in the United States, where the first rule of personal finance is that it should never be simple.Instead, we befuddle people with a menu of a half-dozen retirement accounts. We fetishize the tax code and its deductions and credits and refunds. We name gold, silver and bronze health insurance plans after precious metals but award no medals for clearing the enrollment hurdles.And so it goes with President Biden’s executive action around student loan debt cancellation. The potential $20,000 in relief per person gets the headlines. But the sleeper element here is a new income-driven debt repayment plan that would help many people pay much less of their student loan debt over time, if they’re not big earners.Instead of helping people up front, when they’re hit with five- and six- …

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