Fox News host Sean Hannity is upset that the Biden administration’s efforts to alleviate student loan debt will benefit people on his staff who went to college.
The 60-year-old pundit, who attended New York University but didn’t earn a degree, groused over the president’s initiative on his Fox News television show and on radio. Hannity said he paid his way through school and others seeking the benefits of an education should accept that being saddled with debt is part of the deal.
“College costs have soared multiple times the rate of inflation over the last 50 years and the people that likely will benefit the most are middle class,” he complained Wednesday, citing a report in the Wall Street Journal.
He further contended the plan was a “bailout” for the rich, though the White House says families with incomes in the upper 5% would not benefit from Wednesday’s proposal.
Celebrity Net Worth estimates Hannity’s earning at $250 million. As of 2018, he reportedly owned nearly $90 million in investment properties. His prime-time Fox News program reaches more than 2.5 million households.
He appeared on Wednesday to understand the difficulty graduates and dropout face in 2022.
“Think about it, you get out of college, you’re not making a lot of money,” Hannity said on his popular radio program. “We have a lot of young people that work on my TV show, they’re not making $125,000.”
But according to Hannity, those struggling staffers are in line to get some relief from a “reckless” plan he links to environmentalism and socialism.
“They’re now eligible to get in some cases up to $20,000 and in other cases $10,000,” Hannity said.
He suggested that the president is using debt forgiveness as a form of “bribery” to entice voters who may benefit from having student loans reduced or waived.
Biden’s White House says its plan would benefit lower to middle income borrowers including students who received federal Pell grants and make under $125,000 annually. Newsweek reports that nearly all Pell grant recipients were from families that made less that half that amount.
Consensus on the White House’s student loan plan largely split along party lines.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Boston University alumni who graduated with honors and supports student debt leniency, said in May, “Maybe student loan forgiveness doesn’t impact you... That doesn’t make it bad.”
Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, a high school dropout, expressed different sentiments on Twitter Thursday.
“‘I loved paying back my student loans so much that I want to do it for other people’ — said by no one ever,” she tweeted sarcastically.
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