U-M expert: Biden's proposed student debt forgiveness plan is too limited

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : And 80 percent of student loan asset backed securities benefit from this insurance.
58% : Student loan payments have already been on hold for two years.
58% : During the pandemic, about the time when student loan payments were paused, colleagues and I were interviewing people about their debt.
56% : Outstanding student loan debt is $1.75 trillion dollars -- an amount that some project will approach $3 trillion over the next 10 years.
54% : Student loan debt is $1.75 trillion.
54% : Over 90 percent of student loan debt is insured by the federal government.
52% : Regardless of degree or whether they graduated, Black women borrowers hold an average $52,000 in student loan debt compared to only $12,000 for white borrowers.
52% : This approach recognizes, as numerous scholars and organizers have pointed out, that the federal government actually owes a debt to student loan borrowers.
51% : Yet if they did pay off their debt, their experiences are not the same as most student loan borrowers today.
47% : Who stands to benefit from student loan debt cancellation?
45% : The action, which also extends a pause on federal student loan payments from month's end to January, isn't ideal because the proposed $10,000 debt elimination should be a full cancellation of student debt, says Terri Friedline, associate professor of social work at the University of Michigan.
45% : Canceling student loan debt would have a range of consequential outcomes.
45% : Meaning that they expected to live their entire lives and die still owing student loan debt.
43% : In addition, an income cap focuses on socioeconomic class while ignoring the fact that student loan debt is also racialized and gendered.
43% : But under Biden's policy that leaves 80 percent of student loan debt intact, wealthy white investors win and many borrowers, especially Black and brown women borrowers, still have crushing loan debt.
42% : Student loan borrowers are paying the price for decades of policy decisions that have divested from public education and enabled predatory lending.
42% : Debt cancellation of $10,000 would not change these women's experiences in any meaningful way.
41% : But debt cancellation of $10,000 is so, so meager that in this case something is not better than nothing.
40% : And if there were costs associated with debt cancellation, taxpayers would not be financially responsible for it.
39% :Who wins and loses across the different policy decisions to cancel student loans is an important question about power.
38% : Black women graduate with an average $38,000 in student loan debt -- nearly quadruple the amount that the Biden administration has floated for cancellation.
22% : Student loan payments aren't a switch that the Biden administration can now just flip back on without causing real harm.

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