Student Loan Debt Forgiveness: The Case for Reform
This paper argues in favor of federal student loan debt forgiveness, examining the financial and social burdens that college debt places on American graduates. It traces the historical shift from grant-based to loan-based federal aid, documents the dramatic rise in tuition costs, and highlights the disproportionate impact of student debt on Black borrowers and women. Drawing on data from economists, policy analysts, and journalists, the paper contends that debt forgiveness is both a matter of economic necessity and social justice. It concludes by evaluating the Biden administration's proposal to forgive up to $10,000 per borrower as a modest but meaningful first step toward addressing a systemic crisis in American higher education.
- Introduction: A Generation Burdened by Debt: Framing student debt as a national crisis
- The Rising Cost of Higher Education: Data on tuition costs and loan growth
- Social Justice Dimensions of Student Debt: Racial and economic disparities among borrowers
- Historical Context: From Grants to Loans: Policy shift from grants to loans under Reagan
- The Liberal Arts Penalty and Gender Inequity: Women disproportionately burdened by liberal arts debt
- Addressing Objections to Debt Forgiveness: Rebutting claims that forgiveness favors the wealthy
- Conclusion: A Compassionate First Step: Biden's $10,000 forgiveness proposal evaluated
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its argument in concrete statistics — such as the 60% growth in federal student loan debt over ten years and the 200% tuition increase between 1988 and 2018 — which give its claims empirical weight.
- It broadens the ethical case by incorporating racial and gender dimensions, using economist Thomas Shapiro's data on Black borrowers to move beyond purely economic framing.
- The paper anticipates and directly refutes a key counterargument (that forgiveness favors the upper middle class), which strengthens its persuasive structure.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of multi-source synthesis: it blends policy research, economic data, and journalistic reporting to build a layered argument. Rather than relying on a single authority, the author draws from peer-reviewed education journals, mainstream policy outlets, and academic economists to support each claim, giving the argument breadth and credibility.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a classical persuasive structure: it opens with a statement of the problem, quantifies the burden with data, expands the moral stakes through social justice analysis, provides historical context to explain how the crisis developed, addresses a counterargument, and closes with a policy recommendation. Each section builds logically on the last, moving from diagnosis to prescription.
Introduction: A Generation Burdened by Debt
Student loan debt is crippling young — and many older — Americans. More people are in debt for their educations than at any time in the nation's history. As a democracy, having an educated populace is considered necessary for government to function, enabling citizens to vote in an informed and educated fashion. Society is growing increasingly technologically complex, and greater and more specialized knowledge is needed for it to remain competitive and generate new ideas. Yet because of the high cost of education, a new generation of college students is being penalized rather than supported for pursuing knowledge and a college degree. This paper argues in favor of student loan debt forgiveness on principle and offers a practical consideration of how to achieve it.
The Rising Cost of Higher Education
According to Nuckols, Bullington, and Gregory (2020), federal student loan debt has grown by 60% in the past ten years, supporting the notion that education has become more financially burdensome for the current generation of college graduates. The United States is relatively unusual in this regard, even compared with other industrialized nations, where tuition and higher education are heavily subsidized. According to The Atlantic, "higher education has become impossibly expensive, saddling 44 million Americans with $1.6 trillion in debt. The cost of a year at a private college is now $37,650, on average, and $10,560 at public institutions" (Lowrey, 2020, par. 4). For the average middle-class family, this means that students must take out loans, or their parents must — or both.
The economic costs are significant. College graduates report delaying home buying because of substantial debt, and many have even forgone having children (Lowrey, 2020). Debt-ridden graduates report experiencing significant depression and anxiety, which can add long-term strain to the healthcare system (Lowrey, 2020). This may be the first generation in American history to be in worse rather than improved financial circumstances compared with their parents (Lowrey, 2020).
Social Justice Dimensions of Student Debt
There is a significant racial social justice component to the student debt crisis. More Black students take out loans than white students, and Black students are less likely to have parents who can offer financial assistance during or after graduation (Lowrey, 2020). As economist Thomas Shapiro notes, "two decades after they enter school, the median white borrower has paid off 94 percent of debt, whereas the median Black borrower has paid off just 5 percent" (Lowrey, 2020, par. 6). For society to become more racially equal, it is thus particularly important to address and cancel student loan debt for Black borrowers.
The broader social justice impact of high debt levels is also notable. Debt shapes not just individual financial decisions but life choices — where graduates live, what jobs they pursue, and whether they can afford to start families. For society to function equitably, these constraints must be acknowledged and addressed through policy. Research on student loan portfolios consistently shows that debt burdens fall hardest on those with the fewest resources to begin with.
Conclusion: A Compassionate First Step
The Biden administration's proposal to forgive up to $10,000 per person in undergraduate debt is relatively modest and would not substantially benefit upper-income borrowers (Lowrey, 2020). Even so, it represents an important and compassionate first step for freeing a generation suffering from debt as a result of social forces they did not create. While this amount may not be life-changing for every borrower, it signals a meaningful shift in how American society values education and the people who pursue it. A broader conversation — one that includes more comprehensive forgiveness and structural reforms to reduce future tuition costs — remains urgently necessary. As coverage of the ongoing student loan debate makes clear, the question is not simply one of dollars and cents, but of what kind of society the United States wishes to be.
References
Chingos, M. M. (2017). The rich get richer. Education Next, 17(4). Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com
Fields, S. (2019). 70% of college students graduate with debt. How did we get here? Marketplace. Retrieved from https://www.marketplace.org/2019/09/30/70-of-college-students-graduate-with-debt-how-did-we-get-here/
Lowrey, A. (2020). Go ahead, forgive student debt. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/why-biden-should-forgive-student-loan-debt/617171/
Nuckols, W., Bullington, K. E., & Gregory, D. E. (2020). Was it worth it? Using student loans to finance a college degree. Higher Education Politics & Economics, 6(1), 1–19. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.32674/hepe.v6i1.1358
Weiner, J. (2014). Why Sally can't get a good job with her college degree: College-educated women find it hard to get a job because the market doesn't value their bachelor's degree. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com
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