Student loan debt is at $1.52 trillion. As 20 Democrats vie to become the next presidential nominee, the topic has made its way to the center of the political stage. And rightfully so, according to a new report.
A LendEDU study surveyed 1,000 eligible voters with student loan debt about how they plan to vote in the 2020 election. The results showed that for borrowers, candidates’ positions on student loan debt will be a major factor in how they vote.
In fact, higher education affordability was the second most important issue to them in deciding on a candidate, beat only by healthcare.
The survey “really opens up how important it is and how many Americans actually really, really care about this,” said Ted McCarthy, a research analyst intern at LendEDU and the author of the report.
McCarthy is a student at the Rutgers University business school with loan debt himself.
“I’m going to be faced when I graduate to repay all that,” he said. “This impacts me directly, and doing research on it is definitely important to me and meaningful to me.”
The report expressed particular concern that Americans, with high hopes for student loan debt forgiveness, will stop paying off their student loans. About 18 percent of respondents said they would stop their payments in case a Democratic candidate might win and forgive their debt.
