With all the talk about medical debt this week as a result of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed medical debt credit reporting rule, it’s perhaps interesting to note that a majority of consumers feel forgiving medical debt is more important than forgiving student loan debt, according to the results of a new poll. Fifty-one percent of individuals believe it is very important or extremely important to forgive medical debt, compared with 39% who believe the same for student loan debt.
While fewer than one-third of individuals approve of how President Biden is managing student loans, that figure is higher than how individuals feel about Democrats (28%), Republicans (21%), and the Supreme Court (15%). People instead show more support for student debt relief in certain situations, such as forgiveness for borrowers who were defrauded by their schools (54% support vs. 18% oppose), those who have made on-time payments for 20 years (49% vs. 23%), borrowers who accrued more interest than their original loan (44% vs. 26%), those with debt disproportionate to their income (41% vs. 29%), and individuals facing financial hardship preventing repayment (41% vs. 28%).
Personal experience with student loans also influences attitudes. Those currently repaying student loans (54%) are more likely to prioritize student debt relief compared to those who have paid off their loans (31%) or have no experience with student debt (34%). Partisan differences are stark, with 58% of Democrats supporting student loan forgiveness, compared to 44% of independents and only 15% of Republicans.
“In recent years, more than a million borrowers who were defrauded by the schools they attended have received debt relief from the government, and the survey shows that forgiveness under such circumstances is supported by a majority of Americans,” said Lesley Turner, Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. “Although existing forgiveness policies may receive less attention than broad-based student loan forgiveness plans, such as the one overturned by the Supreme Court in 2023, they are an important source of relief for the most vulnerable borrowers – those who took on debt but did not necessarily benefit from their investment in the ways they hoped.”
