During record low interest rates. Saving $80/mo isn't exactly life changing if you're paying $500/mo on $50k in loans. Better than nothing, but where is the rent and mortgage relief? Suspension of evictions?
I got a discount after 48 months of payments, a discount for autopay, and some of the loans are from 2003-2005
So are mine (edit: mine are 6.5%), but she has something like 140k in student loans, and I only had about 30k... so I've nearly paid mine off, she will never probably pay hers off.
David Graeber's book Debt: The First 5000 Years has historical accounts of what happens when debt gets out of proportion.
Also, among the things I learned from Michael Lewis's Against The Rules podcast, which has an episode on student loans, that our modern consumer financing was enabled by overturning the historical ban on usury debt.
https://atrpodcast.com/episodes/the-seven-minute-rule-s1!1c9...
If you have some that were low interest due to timing or subsidizing (0% interest in some cases), it can make sense to pay the loans slowly and invest or save money instead.
So the age of the loans isn't a reliable predictor of their burden.
On the other hand Trump had the right idea eliminating bloat but he went about it in the worst way. That way we'd be less likely to end up with more permanent taxes if this drags on.