WASHINGTON — As he campaigns for re-election, President Joe Biden regularly touts his work on student debt, pointing out the… millions of people who received a cancellation under his supervision. Yet relatively few Americans say they are fans of his work on the issue, even among those who have student loans.
Three in 10 American adults say they approve of how Biden has handled the issue of student loan debt, while four in 10 disapprove, according to a new poll from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The others are neutral or don’t know enough to say anything.
The outlook wasn’t much better for the Democratic president among those responsible for unpaid student loans, either for themselves or a family member: 36% approve, while 34% disapprove.
The poll shows that, like Biden, there are deep divisions on the issue of student debt relief makes it a campaign priority. The president is moving ahead with a new cancellation plan as he looks to energize young adults and Black and Hispanic Americans — groups that are more likely to prioritize student loan relief but have little approval for the president.
After Biden’s first attempt at widespread student loan cancellation was rejected by the Supreme Court last year, he proposed a more targeted plan that provides relief to certain categories of borrowers. The Biden administration has individually forgiven the student debt of about 4 million people through existing programs.
Asher Marshall advocated for Biden’s first cancellation plan. It would have taken away his $52,000 in student loans. But in retrospect, Marshall says it’s clear Biden made a promise he couldn’t keep without going through Congress.
“He suggested something that sounded good to a lot of people in this country, but there was no way to move it forward from the beginning,” said Marshall, 33, of Jacksonville, Illinois.
Marshall, an independent, still plans to vote for Biden as “the lesser of two evils,” but he wonders whether the cancellation will energize other Black voters, especially since Biden’s latest plan helps fewer borrowers than the first.
Melissa Mata feels let down by the president. The Houston resident has $14,000 in student loans from a program she never finished, and she could have used the help Biden promised.
Now she plans to sit out the November election or vote independently.
‘They promise votes to get votes, but they don’t deliver. So I guess I wouldn’t trust it,” said Mata, 34, an accountant.
Others say Biden is not to blame.
Samantha Kempf, a social worker in Howell, Michigan, has $78,000 in federal student loans from her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Kempf, a Democrat, was angry when Biden’s original plan failed, but she doesn’t blame him.
“It was the Supreme Court that silenced him,” says Kempf (32). “I don’t blame him because he at least made an attempt to get something approved.”
Americans generally had a more somber view of the Supreme Court’s handling of the issue, the poll found, with 15% approving of its work on the issue and about a quarter disagreeing.
About 4 in 10 adults say it is extremely or very important that the federal government provide student debt relief. A similar share say it is not very important or not at all important, while about a quarter in the middle say it is somewhat important.
Younger adults are more likely to prioritize government action on student debt, with about half under 45 saying it is extremely or very important, compared to 3 in 10 older adults who said the same.
The political divide is even greater, with 15% of Republicans saying this is extremely or very important, compared to 58% of Democrats. The issue has become a rallying point for Republicans, who often say taxpayers should not be burdened with paying back other people’s student loans.
Neil Wolf, 49, paid back his student loans for two associate degrees, including a $23,000 loan he repaid in the 1990s. No one is forcing students to take out loans, and taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook to pay them back, said Wolf, a Republican.
“We give away too much. You give everything away, no one appreciates what they have,” says Wolf from Denton, North Carolina. “Why should I have to pay for someone else’s loans?”
Steve Lesyk, a Republican in Gap, Pennsylvania, said he could support a cancellation in some cases. It makes sense for people who have accumulated large sums of interest or have been paying off loans for decades, he said — two categories targeted by Biden’s new plan.
But overall, he’s against cancellation, saying it does nothing to prevent students from falling into debt in the first place.
“They are asking people who have never had a loan to pay back their loans,” said Lesyk, 58, who has never had a student loan. “This money doesn’t just fall out of the sky, it comes from somewhere, and there are so many other things that people need right now.”
Biden’s new plan would erase some or all of the debt of several groups: those with so much accrued interest that they owe more than they originally borrowed, those who have been repaying student loans for at least 20 years, borrowers who entered low-cost college programs. leaving graduates with large amounts of debt compared to their earnings, and those facing other types of financial problems.
None of these categories have the support of a majority of Americans, the poll shows. Just under half support relief for those who have made on-time payments for 20 years, and 44% support this relief for people who now owe more on their loans than they originally borrowed. About 4 in 10 people support it for those who went to an institution that left borrowers with large debts compared to their incomes or for those facing other types of financial problems.
In each category, a majority of Democrats approved forgiveness.
Support was also higher among those now paying off student debt, compared to those who have already paid off student debt. Nearly seven in 10 current borrowers support relief for those with older loans, compared to half of Americans who previously paid student loans.
The highest support among former loan holders at 56% was for those who had been defrauded by their educational institution.
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The poll of 1,309 adults was conducted May 16 to 21, 2024, using a sample from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points for all respondents.
