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SALT LAKE CITY — It felt like a 20-plus year weight being lifted off their shoulders.
Meg Palmer and her husband were relieved last week when they heard President Joe Biden's announcement to cancel some federal student loan debt.
"We've been paying them for so long, it just became part of our bill routine," Palmer, of West Valley City, said. "We're really excited about the opportunity."
Under the plan, borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year, or families earning less than $250,000, would be eligible for $10,000 in loan forgiveness. For recipients of Pell Grants, the federal government would cancel up to an additional $10,000 in federal loan debt.
Palmer, who homeschools her two kids, said the forgiveness plan will significantly reduce what she owes to the government and free up around $400 from her family's monthly payments.
Despite the plan being popular with Palmer and her family — as well as others who responded in a recent KSL.com questionnaire — a poll conducted in May for the Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics shows that Utahns aren't exactly keen on the idea of student loan forgiveness.
Results of that poll, involving 808 Utah registered voters, reflected low rates of support for federal loan forgiveness for all borrowers and only slightly higher support — 14% — for partial forgiveness of loans. Partially pardoning loans for lower-income borrowers had the highest level of support, but even then, it was just 17% overall and as high as 25% among respondents with graduate degrees.
Chris Quick, of Cedar City, decided to resume his college journey after serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and said that taking out a loan was his best option for achieving his goals — which he eventually did — when he graduated this past spring.
"I can see how a plan might appeal to many students, especially if you graduated and you can't find a super high-paying job right away," Quick said.
Despite owing over $20,000 in student loans, Quick said he isn't a fan of the recently passed student loan forgiveness plan.
"The way that I see it, it's very unfair to those that didn't take out loans, those who paid off their loans and most importantly, it's not fair to the taxpayers that have to eventually foot the bill," Quick said. "I think it's important for people to take responsibility for their own actions."
Like Quick, Ruth Nelson knew that her education at Brigham Young University would be reliant on student loans. With this in mind, she worked throughout college to put herself in a position to where she eventually paid off any loans.
While she admitted she isn't "an expert" on all the details of the plan, she said she believes it "establishes an undue burden on individuals who maybe opted out of doing a college experience because they could not afford to do any student loans."
"This money is not just coming out of nowhere, it's going to come off the shoulders of everyone across the board," Nelson, of West Valley City, said. "I worry that with this bailout, in a sense, we're really taking away some really great experiences that these students and former students could've had in that struggle because I think we grow in some of those struggles that we experience in life."
Similar to the KSL.com questionnaire respondents, opinions on how the forgiveness plan will impact the economy differ among experts.
Lawrence Summers, former director at the National Economic Council, said in a tweet that "student loan debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation," indicating that inflation will be observed by a rise in tuition.
Joseph Stiglitz, the chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute, wrote in The Atlantic that "whatever your view of student-debt cancellation, the inflation argument is a red herring and should not influence policy."
Palmer said that she's heard that some people are upset with the plan because they often work multiple jobs to put their children — or themselves — through school, a situation with which she is familiar.
"My parents were blue-collar workers and they worked all those extra jobs and I still had to take out loans," Palmer said.
Ryan Welling took out student loans after he graduated from Weber State University and decided to further his education at the University of Utah. He believes that the outrage surrounding the plan points to a larger societal problem.
"People talk about how, 'Well, I worked three jobs and I didn't go on vacation for 10 years.' Yeah, you had a miserable experience doing this and now you want to force everyone else to have that same miserable experience?" Welling said.
Welling said that although he has student loan payments, the plan won't affect him much, noting that he's "blessed" to be in a position where he can afford an income-driven repayment plan.
"It's such a weird concept to me, like, why are you upset that someone else is getting help?" Welling asked. "Why not lighten their burden?"
To apply for forgiveness or payments to count toward forgiveness under the temporary changes, check the Federal Student Aid help tool online.
