Memo: Voters Overwhelmingly Support a Range of Policies to Cancel Student Debt
By Kirby Phares and Evangel Penumaka
Introduction
Student debt has increased dramatically in past decades and currently affects 45 million Americans, with about 4.4 million borrowers who have been making payments on student loans for more than 20 years. The impact of the crisis is vast and not restricted to just young students—about 8 million people in the U.S. with student loans are 50 years old or older. It also disproportionately impacts Black students, further impacting wealth disparities across race. There is a significant need for policy solutions that will bring relief and economic mobility to the millions of Americans who are affected.
In a September 2021 poll, Data for Progress tested support for proposals to cancel student debt for a wide range of people. We find overwhelming bipartisan support to cancel student loan debt for many groups, such as essential workers who were impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, people with total and permanent disabilities, and people who work in public service like teachers or government employees. We also find strong support for other policies that would tackle the crisis, such as improving accessibility to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program — which forgives remaining debt for public service workers who have been making payments for 10 years — and for making student loans dischargeable by filing for bankruptcy. The Department of Education recently announced an overhaul of the PSLF Program so that more borrowers can receive debt forgiveness — a promising step to policy solutions that voters strongly support.
