WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Joe Biden campaigns for re-election, he frequently touts his work on student loan debt, pointing to the millions of people who have had debt forgiven under his administration. Yet relatively few Americans say they are fans of his work on the issue, even among those who have student loans.
Three in 10 U.S. adults say they approve of Biden’s handling of the student loan debt issue, while four in 10 disapprove, according to a up-to-date poll from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The rest are neutral or don’t know enough to express an opinion.
Among those responsible for unpaid student loans – whether for themselves or a family member – the Democratic president’s prospects were not much better: 36 percent approved, 34 percent disapproved.
The poll reveals a deep divide on the issue of student debt relief, even though Biden has made it a priority of his campaign. The president is pushing up-to-date debt relief while trying to energize youthful adults and blacks and Hispanics – groups that are more likely to prioritize student debt relief but whose approval of the president is slipping.
After Biden’s first attempt to cancel student loans across the board was rejected by the Supreme Court last year, he proposed a more targeted plan that provides relief to specific categories of borrowers. The Biden administration has forgiven the student debt of about 4 million people under existing programs.
Asher Marshall was in favor of Biden’s first debt repayment plan. He would have reduced his $52,000 student loans a little. But in hindsight, Marshall says, it’s clear that Biden made a promise he couldn’t keep without Congress’s input.
“He proposed something that sounded good to a lot of people in this country, but from the beginning there was no way to move forward with it,” said Marshall, 33, of Jacksonville, Illinois.
Marshall, an independent, still plans to vote for Biden because he is the “lesser of two evils,” but he doubts that a cancellation will mobilize other black voters, especially since Biden’s latest plan helps fewer borrowers than the first.
Melissa Mata feels abandoned by the president. The Houston native has $14,000 in student loans from a program she never completed, and she could have used the support Biden promised.
Now she plans to skip the November election or vote as an independent.
“They make these promises to get votes, but they don’t keep their promises. So I for one wouldn’t trust them,” says Mata, 34, an accountant.
Some others say Biden is not to blame.
Samantha Kempf, a social worker from Howell, Michigan, has $78,000 in federal student loans for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Kempf, a Democrat, was upset when Biden’s original plan failed, but she doesn’t hold it against him.
“It was the Supreme Court that put an end to him,” says 32-year-old Kempf. “I don’t blame him for that, because at least he tried to get something approved.”
Overall, Americans have a more cautious opinion of the Supreme Court’s handling of this issue, the survey found: 15 percent are satisfied with its work on this issue, while around a quarter disapprove.
About 4 in 10 adults think it is extremely or very vital that the federal government provide student debt relief, a similar share say it is not that vital or not at all vital, and about a quarter are in the middle, saying they think it is somewhat vital.
Younger adults give higher priority to government action to reduce student loan debt: About half of those under 45 say it is extremely or very vital, compared with three in 10 older adults who said so.
The political divide is even wider: 15 percent of Republicans say it is extremely or very vital, compared with 58 percent of Democrats. The issue has become a rallying point for Republicans, who often say taxpayers should not be burdened with paying off other people’s student debt.
Neil Wolf, 49, has paid off his student loans for two associate degrees, including a $23,000 loan he paid off in the 1990s. No one is forcing students to take out loans, and taxpayers should not have to pay for the repayments, said Wolf, a Republican.
“We give too much away. When you give everything away, no one appreciates what they have,” said Wolf of Denton, North Carolina. “Why should I pay for other people’s loans?”
Steve Lesyk, a Republican from Gap, Pennsylvania, said he could support forgiveness in some cases. It would make sense for people who have accumulated huge amounts of interest or have been paying off loans for decades, he said – two categories targeted by Biden’s up-to-date plan.
However, he is fundamentally against abolishing tuition fees, as this does nothing to prevent students from getting into debt.
“They’re asking people who have never had loans to pay back their loans,” said Lesyk, 58, who has never had student loans. “This money doesn’t just come out of the sky, it comes from somewhere, and there are so many other things that people need right now.”
Biden’s up-to-date plan would write off some or all of the debt for several groups: those whose accrued interest is so high that they owe more than they originally borrowed; those who have been paying back student loans for at least 20 years; borrowers who attended low-benefit college programs that leave graduates with high debt relative to their income; and those who face other types of financial hardship.
None of these categories are supported by a majority of Americans, the poll found. Just under half favor relief for those who have made 20 years of on-time payments, and 44 percent favor it for people who now have more debt than they originally took on. About 4 in 10 favor it for those who went to a bank that left its borrowers with high levels of debt relative to their income, or for those facing other forms of financial hardship.
In every category, the majority of Democrats agreed to debt relief.
Support was also higher among those now paying off student debt than those who have already paid it off. Nearly 7 in 10 current borrowers favor relief for people with older loans, compared with half of Americans who previously paid off student loans.
The highest level of support among former borrowers was among those who were defrauded by their educational institution, at 56%.
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The survey of 1,309 adults was conducted from May 16 to May 21, 2024. The sample came from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is intended to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
