Education Secretary Miguel Cardona pushed back Wednesday against Republican criticism of the Biden administration’s new student loan debt forgiveness program, saying it would curb defaults and boost the economy.
The program, announced last month, will cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for federal borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year and $20,000 for recipients of federal Pell Grants, which target low-income students. The move is expected to benefit 43 million loan borrowers, including 20 million whose debt will be completely canceled.
Republicans have attacked the Biden administration’s executive action as a sop to relatively wealthy families that will be paid for by lower-income workers in the form of higher federal debt. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan research group, estimated the plan could cost roughly $500 billion over a decade.
