Talking Points: Student Debt Relief

• The size of Americans' educational debts threatens the survival of our democracy, because the weight of the debts destroys the security and stability of our middle class. Much of this debt is the result of an overly burdensome and usurious student loan system that has trapped people economically.  

• Instead of secure, middle-class lives, they are now living lives of debt-peonage in which their debts continue to grow in spite of good-faith efforts to pay off the loans. This is not only wrong, it is bad for our economy.

• Public education - including public universities - is a kind of infrastructure that is needed by a democratic, commercial and industrial society like ours. Our democracy needs educated citizens and the economy needs an educated and skilled workforce.

• An educated workforce leads to equality of opportunity.

• In the seventies, we reduced our public support for higher education in order to reduce our taxes. To live in a democratic, commercial and industrial society, we have to be willing to support the educational infrastructure that it needs

• We should forgive current student debt, and we should return to a tax supported system of post-secondary education that is compatible with democracy. We must return to the faith that has sustained our country for more than two hundred years.

  For those who think Biden hasn’t gone far enough to help those in debt, here is what he has accomplished

  • The Biden administration has approved the cancellation of more than $144 billion in federal student loans – wiping out debts for nearly 4 million borrowers.