Harris rejects student loan forgiveness promises because debt forgiveness is losing its political luster

During an April campaign rally, President Biden told a crowd in Wisconsin his latest “life-changing” student loan cancellation plan, promising financial aid for more than 30 million Americans.

However, Vice President Harris has avoided the issue at her political events since replacing Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee. The vice president’s platform mentions it only twice and without a specific plan. In courting moderate voters, Ms. Harris has focused on policies aimed at Americans without college degrees.

“For too long, our nation has promoted only one path to success: a four-year college degree,” Ms. Harris said in September in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. “Our nation must recognize the value of other paths.”

In just a few years, student loan cancellation has transformed from a mainstay of the Democratic Party into a political liability. Once seen as a sure-fire way to galvanize young voters, it has now become a cudgel for critics who say it gives an advantage to elites and comes at the expense of those who defaulted on loans or didn’t go to college.

The issue came up only once during the September presidential debate, when President Trump sharply criticized Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden for failing to keep their promise of widespread cancellations. The former president called it a “total disaster” that “taunted young people.”

“They weren’t even close to canceling student loans,” Trump said.

Biden, who once questioned the legality of mass student loan forgiveness, campaigned on the issue after liberals like Senator Sanders made it mainstream. But as president, Biden faced constant challenges from Republican opponents. For some 42 million people with federal student loans, hope for forgiveness has turned into resignation and disappointment.

Biden’s first plan to cancel up to $20,000 for millions of people was blocked by the Supreme Court last year. A second, narrower plan was halted by a federal judge after Republican-led states sued. A separate policy aimed at lowering loan rates for some borrowers was put on hold by a judge, including after being challenged by Republican-controlled states.

On Friday, the Biden administration launched another attempt at student loan cancellation, this time focusing on Americans who face heavy financial burdens beyond student loans. Its future is uncertain as it will appear less than two weeks before the November 5 elections.

Legal uncertainty likely contributed to Ms. Harris’s lack of emphasis on canceling classes, said Michelle Dimino, director of the education program at the think tank Third Way. She added that this is also an issue that her base knows.

“There’s not much new to offer until we know what’s going to happen in the courts,” Ms. Dimino said. When Biden first proposed a broad recall, it wasn’t an option that hadn’t been tried. “The situation now is completely different than in 2020, when everything was clean.”

Ms. Harris’ silence also signals political risks, especially in the face of a tight election. Any new promise to cancel the loan would galvanize Republicans, who have made it a rallying cry. For voters who could benefit from a canceled election, it’s a promise they’ve heard before.

“The Harris campaign realized that this wasn’t necessarily a winning policy issue,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “The student loan agenda is in tatters and hasn’t really helped them gain any voice.”

Even moderate Americans seem skeptical about student loan forgiveness. A June poll by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 3 in 10 U.S. adults said they approved of Biden’s job on student debt, and it wasn’t much better among loan defaulters . Just over half of Democrats said they supported the president’s job, while 18 percent of independents said the same.

Harris’ campaign declined to provide details or answer questions about her cancellation plan.

Its platform only mentions student loans after a full page of policies aimed at workers without a degree. At a September rally in Pennsylvania, Ms. Harris was met with applause when she announced she would eliminate unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs. She made no mention of student loans in her 20-minute speech.

“Requiring a certain degree is not necessarily an indication of skill,” Ms. Harris told an audience at Wilkes University, a private college in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Ms. Harris’ comments echo a traditional Republican point of view that is increasingly embraced by Democrats as more Americans question the value of a college degree.

“Student loan forgiveness … may discourage some of the support Harris hopes to get from people without college degrees,” said Andrew Gillen, a research fellow at the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute. “These types of polarizing topics poison the well with other issues that have bipartisan support. Once issues like student loan forgiveness are resolved, I think there will be a lot more of this bipartisan agreement.

In his program, Trump said he would “support the creation of additional, dramatically cheaper alternatives to traditional four-year college degrees.” There is no mention of loans. Trump opposed the recall, saying it was illegal.

“President Trump will implement real solutions that will make education, housing and the cost of living affordable again for young people so they can achieve the American Dream,” said national press secretary for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, Karoline Leavittt.

As California’s attorney general, Ms. Harris took action to punish for-profit colleges for defrauding borrowers. As a presidential candidate in 2019, she proposed a narrower path to loan forgiveness than the one pushed by Sanders and Senator Warren. Harris’ plan would provide $20,000 in aid to each federal Pell Grant recipient who started a business in a disadvantaged community and operated it for three years.