The race to Election 2020 is starting off with a bang as Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has proposed a plan to eliminate student debt.
Warren laid out her plan on Monday (April 22), her being the first out of the long list of Democratic candidates to feature a detailed plan for the controversial topic. Warren says her proposal would benefit 95 percent of the 45 million borrowers and eliminate the debt of 75 percent of them. The plan will cost a reported $1.25 trillion over 10 years and would be funded by a proposed tax on the wealth of millionaires who are making more than $50 million as well as billionaires.
The proposal would wipe out up to $50,000 in student debt with household incomes under $100,000 and smaller amounts for those who are bringing in $250,000. “It’s time to end that experiment, to clean up the mess it’s caused and to do better,” Warren wrote in a Medium post about her plan. “We can make big structural change and create new opportunities for all Americans.”
Like many of her progressive peers like Bernie Sanders, Warren also plans to make public college tuition-free, except Warren is also promising to increase funds for Pell grants by $100 billion and provide a $50 billion fund to assist historically black colleges and universities.
Her plan sounds promising, especially to black and Hispanic student debt holders. In 2018, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revealed 86.8 percent of black students borrow more federal loans than white students (59.9 percent). The study also shows Hispanic students borrow at high rates as well: 65% at public four-year colleges and 73.5% at private four-year colleges.
So far, Warren is nearly at the bottom of the list of her contenders like former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders. A poll from Real Clear Politics shows interest in Vice President Joe Biden, who is expected to announce his official candidacy this week.