America’s student loan system isn’t a debt trap—it’s a goddamn guillotine, dangling over every sucker who dared dream of a degree, and Joe Biden sold us the mother of all whoppers to pretend he’d dull the blade. Picture it: 2020 campaign trail, Sleepy Joe’s out there, eyes half-open, promising $10,000 in forgiveness—$20,000 if you’re extra poor—waving that carrot like a preacher with a collection plate. “Higher ed’s your ticket to the middle class,” he croaked, and millions of us, drowning in six-figure IOUs from State U, bought the sermon.

Biden talked big about canceling student debt, hoping nobody noticed he was actually promising crumbs—$10,000 in forgiveness, barely enough to cover the average interest payment on a liberal arts degree. But even that half-assed gesture got sliced to ribbons faster than Hunter Biden’s laptop story. By the time the Supreme Court gutted the plan in ’23, Biden was already backtracking so quickly you’d think his campaign promise was just another senior moment. Five million borrowers scored a bit of relief—mostly nurses, teachers, firefighters, and other “heroic” workers politicians love to pose beside at ribbon-cuttings—but 38 million others got jack-shit.

Now Plan B’s DOA in court, and last week, his Education Department tossed the latest “hardship” pitch like a used tissue, citing “operational challenges.” Translation: “Trump’s coming, we’re out.”

And here comes Donald Trump again, lumbering back onto the stage like a reanimated reality-TV corpse ready to kill any lingering hope of relief. Trump famously called debt forgiveness “vile” and “illegal”—unless it’s his own loans from Deutsche Bank, obviously. During his first term, Trump’s Education Department openly tried to torch Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a rare lifeline thrown to nurses and firefighters drowning in debt. Congress stopped him, but round two could be different: Trump’s cronies already have a plan to bury Biden’s SAVE plan, the one decent policy that capped payments at 5% of income for struggling borrowers. Trump’s Department of Education is sharpening their knives, eager to triple monthly payments and claw back the breadcrumbs Biden scattered. If you thought you were fucked before, buckle up—round two of Trump means your student loans go from guillotine to wood-chipper.

But let’s zoom out and savor just how absurdly fucked up this scam truly is. College tuition has skyrocketed nearly 200% since Reagan was filming jellybean commercials, ballooning to a ludicrous $40,000 a year at your average public university. Meanwhile, colleges sit on $1 trillion worth of endowment money—enough cash to buy Elon Musk’s dignity back and still have plenty leftover for a waterpark—but choose instead to funnel it into bureaucratic bullshit and campus luxuries designed to lure fresh suckers. Students graduate with degrees in “interdisciplinary studies,” useless job prospects, and six-figure tabs that make buying a house seem about as realistic as running a marathon on broken legs.

Don’t pretend politicians didn’t help build this hellscape. Both parties eagerly collude to keep tuition soaring and interest rates high. Congress, swimming in $50 million from student loan lobbyists, refuses to cap interest rates or provide meaningful funding to state schools—then wonders aloud why students can’t afford a $40,000-a-year education. Republicans lecture young graduates to “learn responsibility” while writing multi-billion-dollar checks to military contractors and billionaire tax-break recipients. Democrats, supposedly the party of compassion, mutter about reforms while pocketing millions from predatory lenders, ensuring the status quo remains more entrenched than Mitch McConnell’s jawline.

And speaking of predatory lenders—let’s meet the real monsters of this racket. The Department of Education outsourced student loans to companies like Navient, Sallie Mae, and Nelnet, professional loan sharks who deliberately sabotage repayment plans to keep you paying interest until you’re elderly, miserable, and too exhausted to protest. Navient, previously Sallie Mae, once intentionally misdirected millions of students into the worst repayment plans imaginable, landing them in years of needless debt. The response from Washington? Mild finger-wagging and a fine that amounted to little more than a rounding error in the CEO’s bonus package.

And if you thought traditional colleges were scams, wait until you get a load of America’s for-profit diploma mills—ITT Tech, DeVry, and their ilk. These diploma factories fed students into an industrial shredder, promising careers while delivering degrees as worthless as Trump Steaks. These scams gobbled up billions in federal student loans, leaving victims with worthless certificates, ruined credit, and a lifetime of monthly payments. Sure, Biden forgave around $29 billion for some defrauded students—but that’s barely pocket lint compared to the trillion-plus dollar scam still humming merrily along.

And Congress? Don’t make me laugh. They’re too busy counting the roughly $50 million in campaign donations shoveled their way by banks and loan servicers to seriously tackle debt reform or cap predatory interest rates. They’ve abandoned students entirely, shrugging as 7 million borrowers default—more every day. The same politicians who lecture millennials on fiscal responsibility oversee a system designed explicitly to impoverish, indebted, and demoralize an entire generation. It’s not an accident—it’s a business model, and it works like a charm.

Colleges gouge prices because they can, lenders jack up rates because nobody stops them, and politicians pretend concern while they take lobbyist money behind closed doors. And the only answer the system offers? Pay until you die or until you’re ready to stage your own death to dodge debt collectors. Boomers who graduated back when tuition cost less than a Honda Civic sneer at the younger generation’s struggle, unaware or uncaring that today’s graduates aren’t drowning in lattes—they’re drowning in federally sanctioned financial terrorism.

So what’s the play? The only sane response is rebellion—torch the bills, burn the notices, refuse the scam entirely. Seven million Americans have already defaulted, and tens of millions more should join. Why keep participating in your own financial ruin? The banks built the game, politicians rigged the rules, and colleges cashed your future paychecks before you even graduated. The system isn’t broken—it’s humming along perfectly, designed from inception to bleed you dry.