U.S. President Joe Biden attends a CNN City Hall at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on February 16, 2021.
SAUL LOEB | AFP | Getty Images
“We need the forgiveness of student loans beyond the $ 10,000 potential your administration has proposed,” Jocelyn Fish, marketing director of a community theater, told President Joe Biden at CNN’s presidential town hall Tuesday night . “We need at least a $ 50,000 minimum. What are you going to do to make this happen?”
“I will not make this happen,” the president replied.
Biden suggested it made no sense to use money to forgive student debt “for people who have gone to Harvard, Yale and Penn.”
The exchange quickly sparked progressives, advocates and student loan borrowers who have been asking Biden to increase the amount of debt forgiveness he bears to $ 50,000 and cancel loans through executive actions.
Advocates also point out that it is largely a myth that people with student debts, particularly those in difficulty, have the benefit of a prestigious education.
“The vast majority of students graduating from the elite schools that the president mentioned to CNN City Hall graduated with zero student loan debt,” said Eileen Connor, director of litigation for the predatory student loans from Harvard Law School.
In fact, only 0.3% of federal student borrowers attended Ivy League colleges, according to estimates provided to CNBC by higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
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“Ivy League colleges are just eight universities out of more than 6,000,” Kantrowitz said. “Ivy League colleges also do not have financial aid policies” without loans “that significantly reduce the percentage of students who take out loans.”
The president’s statements suggested that he has not yet reached a broader plan to forgive student loans like those advocated by his progressive rivals in the Democratic primaries. (Biden has said he favors forgiving $ 10,000 and more for those who attended public schools and historically black colleges and universities).
His comments also echoed the arguments of Republicans and some moderate Democrats that student debt forgiveness is a pamphlet for Americans with elegant college degrees.
“If you earned $ 100,000 to study poetry at Bowdoin and then ended up selling coffee at Starbucks, you might regret some of your options and share them, but I don’t know why you deserve a $ 50,000 taxpayer check,” Rick said Hess, director of educational policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Still, only 12 percent of student loan borrowers attended very selective colleges and universities, Kantrowitz found. About a quarter of borrowers come from private non-profit colleges.
But by far, the largest percentage of borrowers (49%) came from public schools.
“Public schools are not cheap,” Kantrowitz said, adding that it still costs more than $ 22,000 a year to attend, including tuition, room, board and fees.
Meanwhile, another quarter of borrowers attended for-profit schools, which have been set on fire to mislead students about professional programs and outcomes, as well as to prey on veterans and people of color. Nearly half of those who take out student loans at these schools end up defaulting.
“Well-to-do students who attend elite schools“ don’t usually have problems, ”said Ashley Harrington, federal director of defense for the Responsible Loan Center.
“We need to look at what’s really going on with this crisis and who’s being affected,” Harrington said. “Student loan debt disproportionately affects low- and low-income people [and] Black and brown people are fighting harder. “