9(MDEwNzMwNTg2MDEzNTgxODc5OTM3MWU0Ng004) "FACT CHECK: Biden’s comments on forgiveness and elite colleges")
President Biden was asked in a CNN City Hall Tuesday night if he supported the idea of forgiving up to $ 50,000 student loan debt for individuals.
His answer: No. He supports the cancellation of $ 10,000 debt, he explained. But he said he was wary of wiping out large chunks of loans to people who went to Ivy League schools: Yale and Penn … “
Instead, he explained, he would rather use that money for other priorities, such as early childhood education or making free community college.
But here’s the problem: regardless of the broader question of whether lending forgiveness is a good idea, Biden’s comments do not reflect the true picture of the $ 1.6 billion owed by federal student loans, or of the borrowers who would benefit most from forgiveness. not.
Most lenders for student loans do not have go to a highly selective colleges because most students do not go to those schools. People who go to Ivy League schools represent less than 0.5% of the nearly 15 million undergraduate college students in the U.S., and many of them do not have to take out student loans to do so.
“Misperceptions that higher education graduates all come from elite institutions are common and do not help to educate the public about the value of post-secondary education,” said Fenaba Addo, an associate professor of student loan debt at the University of the North. Carolina, Chapel Hill, studied. .
Think about it: students who do go to the most selective schools that tend to come from affluent families, and many pay full tuition. Last year, for example, 54% of undergraduate students at the University of Pennsylvania did not even qualify for financial aid, according to school data. At Harvard, the number was 45%.
These highly selective colleges have long struggled to enroll students who are not of the highest wealth in this country. A new report shows that low-income students eligible for federal Pell grants still make up less than 16% of enrollments at many of these schools even today.
And for students at these institutions who do need financial help? Many offer financial aid packages to keep students free from federal student loans. According to the College Scorecard, only 2% of the minor population receive federal study loans at Harvard.
Instead of focusing like Biden on who do not to get the benefit, we need to focus on who would really benefit from loan forgiveness, argues Jalil Mustaffa Bishop, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.
He says the use of the Ivy Leagues to argue for a much smaller amount of debt, or not at all, is misleading: ‘The idea that little or no debt collection is the best way to do it, because a small amount of wealth people benefit is a discussion point to divert attention, ‘he says. Households with student debt usually have the least amount of wealth, federal data show. The people who struggle to repay their student loans are usually those who have not graduated and who have small debts.
“As [Biden] is concerned that the rich or elite will benefit, ‘Bishop adds, and there are policy approaches to deal with it:’ He can focus on raising taxes on households earning more than $ 400,000, as he promised during his campaign . ‘
Bishop’s research focuses on the debt burden on black borrowers, who are often hit the hardest by student debt. They deal with discrimination in the labor market, higher unemployment rates, lower family wealth and other forms of systemic racism.
He argues that the $ 50,000 for loan forgiveness can greatly contribute to reducing inequalities in a system that forces black families to incur more debt, and to having trouble repaying the loans.
Addo, at UNC-Chapel Hill, agrees: “We know that black lenders struggle with repayment, regardless of their institution type and whether or not they have completed a degree.”
And so her advice to President Biden the next time he is asked about this issue? If you only get three sentences to talk about debt forgiveness, she says, “why do you not acknowledge that a $ 1.7 billion debt is an indication of a serious problem.”
