Progressive U.S. lawmaker Ro Khanna on Monday shared his personal struggle repaying college loans while calling on President Joe Biden to free millions of Americans from the burden of student debt.
"The best way to start the new school year for everyone saddled with crushing student loans would be for Biden to free them of this burden."
"When I was younger, I took out more than $100,000 in student loans to pay for higher education," Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote ina Washington Post op-ed. "After graduation, I struggled to make monthly payments and had to take a year forbearance, digging myself deeper into debt."
Acknowledging that "promising career opportunities" allowed him to repay his collegiate debt, the Yale Law School graduate and former Silicon Valley attorney and corporate executive said that he did not "want others who haven't gotten the same breaks I did to struggle and feel that the American Dream is out of reach."
"Millions of Americans who took out student loans and paid them off feel the same way I do," wrote Khanna. "We are not a nation of Scrooges."
The lawmaker continued:
As a member of Congress, I've spoken to young people across the country and asked them what Democrats can do to make their lives tangibly better. From San Jose to West Virginia, I hear the same answer: Cancel student debt. President Biden has the authority to do this with the stroke of a pen for borrowers struggling to make ends meet. The more forgiveness, the better...
Canceling student loan debt for working and middle-class Americans is the right thing to do. No one should be prevented from pursuing higher education because they can't afford the financial burden it poses. Furthermore, it makes economic sense: Relief from student debt would help young people buy homes, build wealth, and otherwise grow our economy.
Noting that Biden promised to cancel at least $10,000 in student loan debt for all borrowers, Khanna asserted that "this is a moment that demands bold action."
"If he can cancel student debt for some," he said of the president, "then he can cancel it for all those in need."
"If Democrats want to regain the trust of people across the country both young and old, rural and urban, and across lines of race, gender, and class, we need to deliver on the things that materially improve people's lives," Khanna argued. "I'm encouraged that Biden has committed to make a decision by August 31 on student loan cancellation and has told my colleagues he is inclined to do something."
"The best way to start the new school year for everyone saddled with crushing student loans would be for Biden to free them of this burden," he stressed.
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Khanna wasn't the only one who published a Post op-ed calling on the president to relieve student debt on Monday. Columnist Perry Bacon Jr. also made the political case for cancellation, arguing that there are three electoral reasons to do so: "to appeal to younger voters and those with debt, to please the Democratic base, and to give Biden's presidency momentum."
"Polls show that a plurality and, in some surveys, a clear majority of Americans support debt relief and that the minority in opposition is largely conservatives and Republicans, who are going to vote against the Democrats anyway," Bacon noted, before acknowledging the limitations of the policy.
"Biden should forgive student loans because it would help millions of people--not because it will ensure Democrats win the midterms, because it probably won't do that," he wrote. "But there are real reasons to think that debt forgiveness is that rare thing in Washington: good politics and good policy at once."
