Silver State Times

The director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated President Joe Biden’s student loan write-off to be a staggering sum of $420 billion.

After being asked by Republicans on the House and Senate Education committees for a cost estimate on Biden’s student loan initiative, Phillip Swagel, director of the CBO, estimated that would be the cost of the forgiveness.

"This is an unprecedented act of peacetime fiscal recklessness," the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board said.

In July 2021, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) was part of a group of Democrats urging the Education Department to expand debt relief for student borrowers as soon as possible.

However, after the news of Biden's new forgiveness plan, Cortez Masto, who is up for re-election this year, told Axios: "I don't agree with today's executive action because it doesn't address the root problems that make college unaffordable."

As Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writers point out, the CBO's "horrifying political math" sums up to $420 billion. This includes $20 billion from Biden's unilateral three-month extension of the moratorium on student loan payments, and another $400 billion that will be needed to cover his cancellation of up to $10,000 in debt issued by June 30 this year, as well as the $10,000 for Pell Grant recipients.

According to the most recent Senate Opportunity Fund poll results, 60% of Americans agree with the statement, "President Biden used student loan debt cancelations to buy votes from young voters just before the midterm elections in November. It was a political decision.” The poll took place Sept. 12-15 and surveyed 1,600 general election voters nationally.

The CBO's cost estimate doesn't include the president's steps to ease the terms on federal income-based repayment plans that are in addition to the $10,000-$20,000 in loan forgiveness. According to the WSJ Editorial Board, "independent analysts have estimated that cost at $150 billion or more, which would take the cost to $570 billion."

As reported by Fox News, Biden announced Aug. 24 that for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year, he will cancel $10,000 of federal student loan debt. For borrowers who attended college on Pell Grants, Biden's forgiveness extends up to $20,000 in student loan debt. In addition, Biden has extended pandemic-era payment freezes through the end of December.

The White House estimates that 300,000 Nevadans are in line to benefit from federal student debt relief.

Still, cynics continue to question the move as Fortune.com points out that Biden has canceled more student loan debt than any other president, having deployed nearly $20 billion in forgiveness since taking office in January 2021. That’s still only slightly more than 1% of all federal student loan debt, which currently stands at $1.7 trillion among 45 million borrowers.