On paper, US President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation plan looks pretty good.
But the overall numbers obscure one key downside of the plan: It will do little to help borrowers who need it the most, those who hold large amounts of debt and have low incomes.
Though they only make up a small share of student loan holders, their plight is a result of everything that’s wrong with higher education. To address this, many loan reduction advocates were pushing the government to take into account racial disparities and offer more generous relief, said Fenaba Addo, an associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.