Student loan forgiveness isn't dead yet, and other takeaways from 2023
Federal student loan borrowers have had quite a year.
If the story of their 2023 could be written by the ghost of Herman Melville, he'd have plunged borrowers into the frigid depths, bound to a white whale big enough to embody the disappointment of millions of Americans who spent the first half of the year hoping to be free of their student loans, and the second half realizing they and their debts were still intertwined.
Whale analogies aside, it was a year for the ages. A year that will be studied for decades, as the inflection point between one unprecedented era – a pandemic payment pause punctuated by the U.S. Supreme Court's scuttling of President Biden's debt relief promises – and another – the rollout of sweeping new repayment policies just as millions of muddled borrowers return to a system hobbled by partisan bickering and budget cuts.
What to make of it all? As a correspondent who's spent years covering the federal student loan system, my editors asked me to reflect on the year and share a few thoughts. I have three.
