The plan will cancel up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients, too — while extending the pause on federal student loan payments through the end of this year.

The total cost of the loan handouts will amount to $500 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The nation's federal student debt now tops $1.6 trillion after ballooning for years — while the national debt, according to the Treasury Department, is currently at $30.7 trillion.

‘A loan is a loan’

"I am no economics or financial person — I am a public citizen," said Alysandra, who works in human resources in New Jersey. (She did not want her last name used.)

"But in my view, a loan is a loan," she said in a phone interview.

Once she took on student loan debt, she said, "it was my financial responsibility to pay that money back. That's how I looked at it."

She added, "I didn't count on the government or anyone else to pay that money back for me. It was my personal responsibility and my financial responsibility to pay it off," she said, "and I did what I had to do to pay if off."

"In my opinion, this is a short-term Band-Aid leading up to the November elections."

For her, that included living at home with her family after she graduated from college and began full-time work, she said. She is still living at home, she told Fox News Digital.

"Honestly, it looks like to me — after I did the responsible thing and worked hard to pay it off — that today [with the handout plan], people are getting rewarded for doing the least amount," she said.

She explained that she "wasn't paying the minimum amount" on her loan repayments.

"I was paying way over the minimum amount" in order to get her debt paid off, she said. "I saw what the interest rates were, and I did a breakdown" — and she was determined to pay down her debt as quickly as possible, she said.

"Again, a loan is a loan, no matter what it is," said Alysandra. "You have to pay that back."

She said she sees that "this loan forgiveness plan is helping people during this period of time. But it's just a Band-Aid. If you think about it, kids everywhere who are starting their semesters of college will still have debt. They're going to have that debt regardless" of the Biden forgiveness handout, she said.

Instead of the handout, she wondered, "Why don't they just lower college tuition and costs?

Right now, she said, "certain people are having $10,000 forgiven. Others are getting $20,000 forgiven. Yet, instead of this Band-Aid, why don't they systematically fix the problem of high college costs?"

"What would be the difference in forgiving this $10,000 now — or lowering the cost of tuition by $10,000?" she said.

She explained that she borrowed over $30,000 for her college costs, which she has now paid back in full.

"When I was first hired out of college, I was making under $50,000 a year," she said.

"So that salary, plus the financial steps I had to take to pay that loan back — I cut down on whatever extracurriculars I didn't need. I still live at home. And now I'm able to save, because I paid that debt off in about three years, while still paying my other bills."

She added, "It was hard. It was really hard to do. But I was taught that a loan is a loan. You pay it back."

For those looking to get a college education, she added, "you may not know what the interest rate is going to be once you're in college or what it will be — but regardless, once you take out a loan, you have to pay that back."