美国国家公共电台 NPR--Examining President Biden's student loan forgiveness program

Examining President Biden's student loan forgiveness program

Transcript¹

President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan is designed to help low-income borrowers. But many will still have loans to pay off after Biden's changes.

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

President Biden announced a plan this week to offer up to $20,000 in student loan forgiveness for millions of borrowers.

GISELLE PARKS: Holy cow. Holy cow. OK. That's amazing. OK. Wow.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

That's Giselle Parks of Orlando, Fla., when she heard the news. She expects to have her $5,000 in student loans completely erased². But many other borrowers are still going to have to pay loans off after Biden's changes.

MART?NEZ: NPR's Sequoia³ Carrillo is here to talk us through this.

Now, Sequoia, Biden's plan is giving money to households making up to 250,000. The Census⁴ Bureau says they're top 5% earners. So is this all really just helping⁵ well-off college grads that maybe don't need the help?

SEQUOIA CARRILLO, BYLINE⁶: Not exactly. This plan is actually designed to mostly help low-income borrowers. The administration estimates that among borrowers who aren't in school anymore, about 90% of relief dollars will go to people earning less than $75,000 a year. And keep in mind that not all borrowers are graduates. According to the Education Department, a third of all student loan borrowers have some debt, but no degree. This plan would help those folks a lot. And then, of course, another big part of Biden's announcement is that Pell Grant recipients⁸ qualify for up to $20,000 in loan relief. And that's twice as much as other borrowers.

MART?NEZ: OK. So it sounds like they're the big winners here. But why is it fair to give them more help?

CARRILLO: Pell Grants are designed to help the lowest-income students afford college. According to the White House, more than 60% of current federal student loan borrowers are also Pell Grant recipients. And at one point, these grants covered almost the entire cost of college, but they haven't kept up with rising tuition. So you end up having the lowest-income students having to borrow more just to make it in the classroom. And that brings us to another core tenet of this plan, which is to help address racial inequalities around student loans. Black student loan borrowers tend to take out more loans to pay for college, and those debts tend to last longer compared to their white peers. They're also twice as likely to have received Pell Grants.

Member station reporter Alexis Marshall spoke⁹ to graduate student Hailee B. Roye in Nashville. Roye is a Pell Grant recipient⁷, and she thinks she'll qualify for forgiveness, but she's expecting to over $100,000 after she graduates.

HAILEE B ROYE: It's, like, a bittersweet type of thing. Like, it's sweet - like, yeah, 20K, like, knocked off. You know, that may be, like, a year or two knocked off that I have to pay. But it's also like, now I still have 80 grand left, so how am I going to pay this back?

MART?NEZ: All right. So that brings up a kind of opposite beef over Biden's move that it did not go far enough. So what gives?

CARRILLO: We heard from other Black borrowers who still expect to owe a lot even after some of their debt is forgiven. And that's something the NAACP in particular is trying to draw attention to. In fact, the morning after Biden's announcement, they hosted a rally with a brass¹⁰ band outside the White House calling for even more debt relief. But many Democrats¹¹ who'd been arguing for higher debt cancellation¹², like Elizabeth Warren and Ayanna Pressley, ended up applauding the move.

MART?NEZ: Now, lots of GOP lawmakers have been opposed to any level of forgiveness. What's been their argument against?

CARRILLO: Republicans have criticized the plan for being unfair to people who have already paid off their student loans. And they've also called it out because it does nothing to address the high cost of college. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke about it this Thursday. He called Biden's plan, quote, "a policy disaster and a political disaster."

MART?NEZ: That's NPR's Sequoia Carrillo. Thanks a lot.

CARRILLO: Thank you.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 erased   

v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 sequoia   

n.红杉

参考例句：

• The sequoia national forest is at the southern end of the sierra nevada range.红杉国家公园位于内华达山脉南端尽头处。
• The photo shows the enormous general Sherman tree in California's sequoia national park.照片显示的是加利福尼亚州红杉国家公园内巨大的谢尔曼将军树。

4 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 recipient   

a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器

参考例句：

• Please check that you have a valid email certificate for each recipient. 请检查是否对每个接收者都有有效的电子邮件证书。
• Colombia is the biggest U . S aid recipient in Latin America. 哥伦比亚是美国在拉丁美洲最大的援助对象。

8 recipients   

adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器

参考例句：

• The recipients of the prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者的姓名登在报上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The recipients of prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者名单登在报上。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

10 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

11 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 cancellation   

n.删除，取消

参考例句：

• Heavy seas can cause cancellation of ferry services.海上风浪太大，可能须要取消渡轮服务。
• Her cancellation of her trip to Paris upset our plan.她取消了巴黎之行打乱了我们的计划。