$10,000? $50,000? What different amounts of student loan forgiveness would mean for borrowers – CNBC
- President Joe Biden has said he supports $10,000 in student loan forgiveness, but members of his own party, including Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, are pushing him to cancel $50,000 per borrower.
- Here’s how those different plans would impact the country’s 42 million student loan borrowers.
It remains uncertain whether student loan forgiveness will happen — and if it does, how much of borrowers’ loans will be canceled.
On the campaign trail, President Joe Biden promised to wipe out at least $10,000 for all borrowers, and more for those who attended public colleges or historically Black colleges and universities.
However, amid the coronavirus pandemic, Biden is under mounting pressure from members of his own party, advocates and borrowers to go further by forgiving $50,000 per person and to do so through executive action.
“All you need is the flick of a pen,” the Senate’s top Democrat, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, recently said about forgiving student debt. “You don’t need Congress.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., describes student debt forgiveness as “the single most effective economic stimulus that is available through executive action.”
More than 325 organizations and nonprofits, including the NAACP, the American Psychological Association and the National Consumer Law Center, are also calling on Biden to cancel student debt through executive action. Close to 1 million people have signed a Change.org petition titled, “President Biden: Cancel student loans in the first 100 days.”