EP 603 Student Loan Forgiveness: Who Benefits? Who Pays?

President Biden recently announced a college loan forgiveness program. It provides forgiving up to $10,000 of student debt for up to 43 million low to middle income borrowers. That is single borrowers with incomes of up to $125,000 and couples with incomes up to $250,000. It will also forgive as much as $20,000 for the lowest income borrowers who qualified for Pell Grants to pay for college. To some this is too little given the staggering $1.7 trillion in outstanding loans. To others, it is a giveaway to likely Democratic voters—young, college educated people and will be paid for by many who never went to college in the first place. All agree it does nothing to deal with inherent problems that make college education so debt inducing in the first place. We discuss all the angles today with Steven Brint, Ph.D. a distinguished professor of sociology and public policy at the University of California, Riverside.

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