No, Student Loans Aren’t Like a Mortgage

For the past two years, Americans who hold student-loan debt have had a reprieve. At the outset of the pandemic, lawmakers agreed that a pause on debt payments was in order; this stopgap measure has been extended six times. The current restart date is slated for the end of August, though experts already suspect that politicians will want to wait until after the midterm elections.

Eventually, though, policymakers will have to figure out what to do about the $1.6 trillion in student debt. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has been one of the most prominent voices calling for. Alongside Senator Chuck Schumer, Warren has called for the president to erase up to $50,000 in student-loan debt per borrower, arguing that doing so would help close the . (Studies that Black borrowers are more likely to take on student debt, more likely to accrue more student debt, and more likely to default on those loans whether they finish a college program or not.)