• LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    It says “Trump’s changes to income-driven repayment plans.”

    I don’t get it - aren’t student loans fixed amounts, with monthly payments calculated to pay off the loan after a certain amount of time? How can they just raise the payments?

    Not much detail in the article but it does mention Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan being blocked and Trump pausing applications for some income-dependent payment thing. Are we seeing people whose payments would have been reduced by either of those suddenly not having them available anymore?

    • IMALlama@lemmy.world
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      7 minutes ago

      My mom qualified for, and received, federal student loan forgiveness. Yes, she had to make payments and work in a qualifying job for 10 years but due to her low income the payment amount was adjusted down.

      Unless you’re in a position that qualifies for loan forgiveness, and you trust that forgiveness will be there when you qualify, income based payment rates are not a good idea. The total amount owed by my mom actually grew over the years because the amount she was paying was less than the amount of interest charged. For a bit when she was 8 years in she had a scare that she wouldn’t qualify and was shocked to find this out, despite saying “I’ve paid thousands!!!”.

      Your average American isn’t very financially literat, or lives in the land of denial, which makes them easy to take advantage of.