ATLANTA — After the ground-thumping music died down, Stacey Abrams took the stage in west Atlanta to congratulate dozens of teens on graduating from high school — and pledge she'll find new ways to relieve their student debt if she's elected governor.
"We know that affordability is an increasing issue in the state but it's a solvable problem," Abrams said Monday. "And we don't have to raise taxes to raise the quality of life in Georgia. All we have to do is spend our money right."
While student loan debt has become an emerging flashpoint among Democrats, the party's top contenders in Georgia have unequivocally chosen sides.
Both Abrams and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock want the White House to forgive some of the estimated $1.7 trillion in student debt in hopes that it would allow more students of color to attend college, boost the economy and narrow the racial wealth gap.
With a tight election looming, Democrats also predict it could give young, liberal Georgians disenchanted with President Joe Biden a reason to vote in November.
"I'm taking out serious loans and I think they should be forgiven," said Audrey Rich, a recent high school graduate from Rome who will soon attend Jacksonville State University.
"It's going to be a significant factor in who I support. You shouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg just to get a good education."
At the heart of the debate is a divide over how pricey the program would be — and how many of the nation's 41 million student borrowers could be eligible.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his allies want Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt, contending that easing the burden would free up more spending that would boost the economy. The average student loan debt for recent college graduates hovers around $30,000 per borrower.
Some key centrist Democrats counter that forgiving debt would disproportionately benefit wealthier families since most college debt belongs to more affluent households. They also fear it would require a complicated new bureaucracy to administer the relief.
Republican opponents frame the program as a desperate effort to pander to voters in a tough election cycle. Gov. Brian Kemp said it would "saddle Georgia families with more runaway spending," while GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker has also opposed the idea.
"Everyone who doesn't already have a Che Guevara T-shirt and a 'Vote Socialist' bumper sticker on their Subaru knows that Biden has dragged America too far left, but it's not enough for Stacey," said Dan McLagan, a veteran GOP strategist. "She's rattled and that's a bad look when you're running for governor."
The White House last month floated a more moderate proposal to cancel $10,000 in student debt per borrower that would be limited to Americans who earned less than $150,000 individually or $300,000 for married couples filing jointly.
That led to backlash from liberal advocates who called the proposal an ineffective half-measure. Wisdom Cole, the national director of the NAACP's college division, said forgiving $10,000 in loans "will not break the chains" of generations of debt in the Black community.
Warnock hasn't specified how much he wants the program to cost, but he told Biden he should go beyond the $10,000 in loan forgiveness. At a recent Democratic gala, the first-term Democrat said the president should "take his pen and do what he can right now to forgive student debt."
"He can do it. He can do it by executive action," Warnock said. "And I'm going to push him to do it."
The senator's views are shaped by his own experience. He often jokes that he attended Morehouse College on a "full-faith" scholarship, depending on a Pell Grant and low-interest student loans to become the first member of his immediate family to graduate from college.
"Our children should not have a mortgage before they get a mortgage," Warnock said. "So I'm going to show up in the halls of Congress, show up at the White House, show up wherever our children and their lives are on the line."
Abrams, too, has urged Biden to take swift action to relieve student debt. She campaigns on promises to ease college costs in other ways, including implementing a needs-based scholarship program for Georgia's colleges and universities.
"When you're finished, I want to make sure you have careers you are excited about," she told the students, "careers that pay you enough to stay in the state of Georgia."
