Dem
51
GOP
49
The Supreme Court told Joe Biden that he could not cancel student debt by executive action, but he is still trying to do it for specific classes of borrowers where he is on stronger legal ground. His latest move primarily targets poor students with heavy debt, especially those who studied in worthless programs. It mostly uses existing programs, like SAVE, but changes the rules slightly. Biden's latest plan will cancel $7.4 billion in debt for 277,000 former students. Republicans oppose canceling student debt and will almost certainly challenge Biden's moves in court.
Most of the new recipients of debt cancellation borrowed relatively small amounts (<$12,000) and have been making payments on it via the SAVE program. Others include teachers, librarians, academics, and public safety workers who have been making payments for over 10 years.
While this new action helps some people with student loans, so far all of what Biden has done has helped only about 10% of the 43 million Americans with federal student loans. Whether this is enough to help him in November is unclear. It could annoy blue-collar workers who might have taken out a loan to buy a truck, for example, and no one is talking about forgiving truck loans. It could also annoy the 90% of people with student loans who didn't get relief. On the other hand, it could make the 4 million people who got relief into big Biden fans. (V)