President Joe Biden’s ambitious new plan to expand access to higher education has a key missing piece: it leaves millions struggling with student loan debt to carry that burden alone. As a president who frequently speaks of his working-class upbringing in Scranton, Biden is stuck on incorrect assumptions about loan forgiveness and class—a blind spot in his education policy that is both unpopular and misinformed.
Biden has repeatedly dismissed the idea of forgiving up to $50,000 in student debt, noting: “The idea that … I’m going to forgive the debt, the billions of dollars in debt, for people who have gone to Harvard and Yale and Penn…” Loan forgiveness, Biden seems to say, is unfair to the less fortunate because it pays for the education of wealthy students who went to elite schools. But new data shows that it’s actually wealthier people who oppose loan forgiveness. Those who are low income are its strongest supporters.
There is a simple story here—and President Biden is missing it. Low-income Americans don’t view loan forgiveness as a giveaway to those already at the top of the economic ladder. They believe it opens the door to economic opportunity for everyone.
A recent Grinnell College National Poll, conducted by Selzer & Co., found broad support for cancelling student loan debt. Over 66 percent of Americans favored some form of loan forgiveness, either by forgiving loans for everyone with student debt (27 percent) or for those in need (39 percent).
While majorities of people at every income level support loan forgiveness, opposition to it is concentrated among wealthier Americans. Just 12 percent of those who make $25,000 or under oppose loan forgiveness, compared to 44 percent of those making over $100,000 per year.
Interestingly, there is no difference in support for loan forgiveness by educational attainment. Those with a high school education are just as likely to support forgiving loans as those with a college education.
In short, there’s just no evidence in our polling that Biden’s class-based view of loan forgiveness is shared by those whose interests he is seeking to protect.
