Bailey Reavis, of Adams Morgan, long assumed she would never pay off her student debt. She’d enrolled in the University of Colorado Boulder as an in-state student to minimize her debt. Since graduating eight years ago, Reavis has been living in D.C. and is now earning just over $60,000 a year at a nonprofit.

But she is now looking forward to most of her debt being wiped out. President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he plans to cancel up to $10,000 in student debt for those without Pell Grants and earning less than $125,000 a year, and up to $20,000 for those who received Pell Grants. That leaves Reavis with about $500 in student loan debt.

“It’s just a lifechanger,” Reavis told DCist/WAMU. “I’m finally in a position where I can potentially buy a house, or I can put that money that I would have spent into retirement, and be comfortable in a way that I just never assumed I’d be able to.”

It also means she can now join her friends more often when they eat out — which was sometimes too expensive — and once in a while, treat herself to a concert at the Kennedy Center.

Herbert Cacal, who graduated from college in 2019 with about $28,000 in student loan debt, said he “jumped up and down” when he heard the news.

Cacal, a Woodley Park resident who works in financial modeling and makes about $90,000 a year, said he expects to save $80 a month that he would otherwise have spent on student loan payments. In anticipation of the announcement, Cacal said he recently bought his first car.

“I was thrilled,” he said. “Then it kind of hit me like, ‘oh, how nice would it have been, to be even a little more than $10,000?’ But regardless, this definitely comes as a big relief.”

The plan doesn’t have an equal effect on all local borrowers. D.C.-area residents suffer some of the nation’s highest student debt burdens. D.C. has the highest average student loan debt per borrower, according to the Education Data Initiative, closely tailed by Maryland and Virginia in second and fourth place respectively.

Alex Araya, a recent law school graduate living in Adams Morgan, told DCist/WAMU that he has about $74,000 in student loan debt — most of it from law school. He is still hoping to benefit from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF), and would need to make 120 monthly payments to qualify.

“Regardless of how much is forgiven, unless it’s the full amount, then it’s not really going to be that effective for me,” he said.

He said while it’s “really great” that some people’s debt will be wiped clean, the Biden administration “can always do more and should do more.”

“It is a first step,” Araya said. “I would really like to see student debt completely wiped away and education made more accessible … maybe even completely free at public universities.”

Kate D., of Northwest D.C., took out federal and private student loans when starting college in 2005. (She asked DCist/WAMU not to use her full name for privacy reasons.) Kate said she was able to pay off her federal loans years ago, because was only able to qualify for so much. But she has been paying for her private loans monthly for about 15 years and still owes more than what she borrowed.

Kate said her loans also have a 7.5 percent interest rate, and that she has to pay about $10,000 in interest alone every year.

“There has to be something done with interest rates, and not just for federal loans,” Kate said. “Private loans should be regulated. I know they’re private, but they’re educational. It’s not like it’s a personal loan. The money goes directly to the school.” Because her loans are private, Kate also does not qualify for programs like PSLF.

Dylan Wolters, a data scientist in Capitol Heights, Md., said he’s noticed a “big divide” in his family and friends between those who took out public loans and those who took out private loans: He said the former are much better off. His brother, who went to college at the height of the Great Recession, took out private loans and went through a “constant battle,” at one point paying several hundred dollars a month. Wolters, who graduated just last year, took out public student loans.

For Wolters, $10,000 forgiveness is helpful. Under his name, he has about $36,000 in student loan debt. But the total amount he owes is much higher. $36,000 was the maximum he was allowed to put under his name. The remainder of the loans — totaling about $90,000 — are under his mother’s name. Wolters said that debt pushes his parents beneath the poverty line.

“My parents don’t have an insane amount of money. They live in rural Texas and they get by fine and they’re doing well. But an extra $700 a month payment is astronomical,” he said. “It’s brought up a lot of fear of missing payments, defaulting on the loans and potentially having their house taken.”

Wolters said he is hoping to get his loans under control as soon as possible to help his parents out.

“They’re not at the age where you go and build or career, or build back from losing your home,” he said. “They’re supposed to be at that age where you’re thinking about retirement.”

Biden’s plan has also drawn backlash from those who feel that it would further exacerbate inflation, and put the government further in debt. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an adjunct professor of economics at George Washington University, said she sympathizes with people with college loans, but that forgiving student loans this way is “expensive.”

“It doesn’t just vanish. Someone still has to pay the debt,” she told DCist/WAMU.

That burden, Furchtgott-Roth said, would likely fall on those without college degrees. And she said the plan’s cap of $125,000 on income is not enough to prioritize those who most need forgiveness.

“It’s catching people who are well-off and who have high expected earnings, as well as people who are not well-off,” she said. “President Biden’s action doesn’t do enough to distinguish between these two groups.”

But she said the plan could yield some benefit for D.C.’s economy, given that the city has many recent graduates who may find themselves suddenly debt-free and able to spend more money.

Ethan Miller, a financial advisor in Maryland, said the plan could be a substantial financial boost for the D.C. area.

“If you don’t have to make those debt payments, maybe that means they’re able to go out more, you’re able to tip a larger amount,” Miller said.

Being relieved of that debt, he said, also makes possible things that many of his D.C. clients couldn’t even begin to think about. Like buying a home — increasingly challenging with climbing home prices in the region — or starting a family.

“This is a really an unprecedented move that is going to help millions of borrowers in this country,” he said.