The author, Ellie Bozmarova.
Courtesy Ellie Bozmarova
Biden announced a plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans for some borrowers.
As a Pell Grant recipient, I’ll get $20,000 forgiven of my more than $40,000 in total loans.
As a 30-something, fewer years of payments means I can focus on other financial goals.
President Biden announced on August 24 that he plans to forgive $10,000 of student loans for many borrowers, and an additional $10,000 for students who received Pell Grants. This means a lot to me: I’ll gain the gift of precious time as I (gulp) get older.
Based on what I paid toward my loan balance pre-pandemic, that $20,000 (I received Pell Grants) would have taken me four years to pay off, not counting daily-accumulating interest.
As I move deeper into my 30s, time seems more precious by the minute. Can my fellow millennials and I afford to lose time that could be spent making other financial decisions?
I took out a small amount of loans for my undergrad
Less than a decade ago, I graduated from UC Berkeley with $13,904 in loans. I owed this relatively small amount thanks to scholarships, Pell Grants, Cal Grants, a work-study job, and my parents’ help with housing.
I’d gone to college knowing it’d be wise to keep that number low, so I applied only to in-state schools. Berkeley was the natural choice in part because it was a public school. I’d wanted to study English and didn’t want debt to be the reason I followed one career path over another.
I made my first payment four months after graduating and have since faithfully paid my loans when they were due each month.
The result of that effort? I’ve paid off a total of $12,796.33 since 2014. Over $3,000 of that sum is accrued interest. An accomplishment on one hand, and a drop in the bucket on the other, especially as I’d go on to amass even more student debt.
My Master’s degree cost me a lot more
I started graduate school in 2017. It was a low-residency program allowing me to work full-time while I took classes, flew to residencies, and completed my thesis.
I funded my first semester out-of-pocket by working at a startup in San Francisco. My philosophy on work had undergone a revision: While there were things about the work and my team that I enjoyed, I was working at this job primarily to fund my education.
But even then it wasn’t quite sustainable. I started relying more on loans. I graduated from my Master’s program with a total of around $40,000 in student loan debt. It was, again, relatively low compared to other students today, many of whom are facing six figures of debt after graduation. But it’s enough to make one ride a scooter instead of buying a car. No, really, I rode a blue Razor scooter and carried it with me everywhere. It was fun, but not freeway legal.
What Biden’s announcement means to me
With $20,000 of forgiveness, I’ll get a significant amount of time back. As a result of that saved time, I’ll be able to shift my focus to other financial priorities, like family planning or buying a home.
Without this kind of forgiveness, it would be difficult to make longer-term decisions. Even now it’s difficult to know where to allocate funds with loans coming due at the end of December, complete with a restart on interest rates reaching 9% or more on some loans.
Loan forgiveness will create more time — more time to plan, more time to save, more time to decide what’s important both in today’s current landscape and in my future.
It will create necessary buffer time before more of life’s potential challenges come up, like supporting my own parents and grandparents.
Broad student loan forgiveness can change the course of my life, and many people’s lives. It can allow us to be free from these loans at a pivotal moment.
It’s something that may be hard to do without.