Biden administration staffers benefit from student loan bailout
Biden administration staffers reportedly stand to greatly benefit from President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 per borrower in student loans.
A memorandum published by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) reported that DOEd staff “could personally benefit by up to $512,646 in forgiven student loan principal balances and forgone interest payments” should $10,000 per borrower be forgiven.
Biden’s student loan plan will cancel $10,000 in student loans for borrowers who did not receive Pell Grants, and $20,000 for borrowers who did. Borrowers must make under $125,000 to be eligible for forgiveness.
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The memo detailed that 41 DOEd staffers collectively owe between $2.8 million and $6.5 million in student loan debt.
According to Ballotpedia, the average White House salary tallies $102,095. Ballotpedia analysis also shows that 336 staffers make $119,999 or less, meaning more than 70% of 474 White House staffers could be eligible for the plan.
Additionally, 2021 White House financial disclosures, obtained by Bloomberg News last year, revealed that 30 White House staffers owe a collective student loan debt between $2 million and $4.7 million.
Founder of American Accountability Foundation, Tom Jones, told Campus Reform that “America’s colleges and universities are failing students by graduating them with increasingly expensive and increasingly useless degrees.”
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“Adding insult to injury, the federal taxpayer is now on the hook to further subsidize these worthless degrees,” he continued. “Biden's loan bailout is another sign of the decade-long decline of American education and screams for a wholesale reform of American higher education."
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) reported that the plan could cost upwards of $400 billion. While NTUF acknowledges taxes will not “immediately” rise, it warns that the plan poses a risk to taxpayers through the potential for higher interest rates.
Campus Reform has reached out to all parties mentioned in this article for comment and will be updated accordingly.
