CNN Contributor Criticizes Biden’s Plan to Forgive Student Debt: ‘Not the Best Use of Taxpayer Dollars’

CNN contributor Catherine Rampell criticized President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive some student debt, saying it’s “not the best use of taxpayer dollars.”

Biden is expected to forgive up to $20,000 in debt for Pell Grant recipients for individuals making less than $125,000 annually and couples making under $250,000 annually. Other student debt up to $10,000 would be forgiven for those under those same qualifications. The president is also expected to extend the moratorium on student loan payments for the last time. The moratorium, if extended, would end on Dec. 31. An announcement on these moves is scheduled for Wednesday.

During Wednesday’s CNN Newsroom With Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto, when asked by Sciutto whether student loan forgiveness is “good economic policy,” Rampell, also a columnist for the Washington Post, said that “from an equity and inflationary standpoint it’s not the best use of taxpayer dollars.”

Rampell went on to explain:

There are a lot of people who will benefit who appear to have relatively low or moderate incomes today but will have very high expected future earnings. Going to college is generally considered an investment. If you are someone like a medical resident, for example, you will benefit from this because your income is moderate today but your future earnings are very high.

So I think there are better ways to target the people who are actually suffering from student loan burdens who are less likely to ever be able to pay off their debts, you know, maybe because they never actually achieved a degree or they got a degree that was ultimately worthless. There are more targeted ways to do this that Biden has also pursued something more broad-based. I think it’s going to cost a lot of money and may end up going to a lot people who don’t really need the help.

Harlow called Rampell’s reaction “a good point.”

“Only 16 percent of this would go households making under $25,000 a year, the poorest if you look at what the Urban Institute said,” she said.

Watch above, via CNN.