Congress must rescue students from virus recession
One day in March, I was on my way to take an exam when I received an email from UC Berkeley’s chancellor explaining that classes would begin to be taught remotely. My phone immediately blew up with messages from my peers. This announcement made our summer work plans before our senior year uncertain.
With the economy shutting down to combat COVID-19, the once-promising job market has vanished. Countless of our dream summer internships have been rescinded, leaving us with little hope to form professional relationships. Obtaining work becomes more difficult as the days pass given the astonishing unemployment rates.
We will need to start paying tens of thousands of dollars in student loans following graduation next year. But with the economy falling off a cliff, that prospect is becoming more and more daunting.
Last month, the unemployment rate hit 14.7%. More than 20 million jobs were lost in April alone. Some experts predict the U.S. unemployment rate will hit a jaw-dropping 25%, and economists warn that recovery could take years.
Yet, President Donald Trump and the Republican-led U.S. Senate balk at providing needed meaningful studentdebt relief.
In this economy, getting hired is difficult even for seasoned professionals. For young graduates trying to start a new career, it seems impossible. Even for someone like me, who is attending arguably the world’s top public institution, this situation is terrifying.
So what are students supposed to do? Paying off student loans is an arduous task in normal times. Roughly two-thirds of college seniors graduated with student loans, averaging nearly $30,000, in 2018. Graduate students owe more than $57,000 on average.
Now, paying off that debt is simply impractical. The class of 2020 is entering the worst job market in American history. With a conceivable second wave of the coronavirus, and a feasible years-long economic calamity that has shattered the job market, Congress must act.
The federal government has already allotted more than $500 billion in forgivable loans to companies with up to 500 employees through the Paycheck Protection Program. Additional billions were also allocated through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, which includes grants capping at $10,000. To top it off, Republicans in Washington created a $500 billion slush fund for the country’s largest corporations.
To address the student loan crisis, however, the federal government has provided scraps. Temporarily suspending federally held student loan payments and interest, as the coronavirus rescue package did, is equivalent to bringing a miniature knife to a gunfight. Nibbling around the edges of this predicament is not going to cut it.
Student borrowers need meaningful, structural aid — or else the thin thread we are currently hanging by will break. Congress must pass studentloan forgiveness. It is shameful that the trillions of dollars that have been spent by the federal government thus far have not already done so.
The Democratic-led House’s HEROES Act passed on May 15 takes a step in the right direction. The bill would cancel $10,000 in student debt for “economically distressed” borrowers. But with Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attacking the legislation, it seems unlikely to become law.
If Senate Republicans and Trump continue to merely strive to advance large corporations, and are unwilling to provide even the slightest of support to address the crisis student-loan borrowers are facing, there is only one solution: the 2020 elections.
Americans must meet the urgency of this moment. Ignoring these enormous hardships that a whole generation is enduring cannot be the solution. Creating corporate slush funds, while ignoring student-loan borrowers, is not indicative of an America with morals.
This November, Americans must elect those committed to addressing this crisis. Students are the future. Rescuing this generation is in the country’s best interest.