Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Urges Pushing Biden to Cancel $50,000 Student Loan Debt
New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has continued to urge supporters to push President Joe Biden to cancel $50,000 of student loan debt per borrower.
During a recent virtual town hall, Ocasio-Cortez spoke about how Biden has previously expressed support to cancel up to $10,000 of student loan debt for individuals.
"I don't think that that's enough," Ocasio-Cortez said. "We need to push him. I believe in full student loan debt cancellation. But we have to push him to at the bare minimum a floor of $50,000 that Sen. [Elizabeth] Warren and Sen. [Chuck] Schumer have also advanced."
She continued, "$50,000, I believe, would cancel about 80% of the student loan debt in the country. I believe in higher thresholds because, frankly, I believe that our doctors and our lawyers and folks that have been in legal professions, academia, professors, etc., I believe that they should also be eligible for — to have their student loan debt cancelled. And so I think that that's something that's extraordinarily important."
The comments by Ocasio-Cortez came as Democrats in Congress continue to push for Biden to cancel $50,000 of student loan debt per borrower. Biden has previously expressed opposition to broadly cancelling that large of an amount of student loan debt and instead has supported canceling up to $10,000 of student loan debt per borrower.
Despite Biden's opposition to the $50,000 cancellation, numerous Democrats such as Sens. Schumer and Warren have continued to call on the president to cancel this amount of student loan debt.
Earlier this month, the Hill reported that in a fundraising pitch, Schumer said "Biden has the authority to cancel $50,000 of student debt per person with the flick of a pen. And [Sen.] Elizabeth Warren and I are leading the charge to get him to do it."
In a statement from February, calling on Biden to cancel $50,000 in student loan debt through executive action, Warren said, "By cancelling up to $50,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers, President Biden can take the single most effective executive action available to provide a massive stimulus to our economy, help narrow the racial wealth gap, and lift this impossible burden off of tens of millions of families."
Ocasio-Cortez has also made similar calls in the past for Biden to cancel student loan debt.
During an Instagram Q&A in February, she wrote, "The Biden admin NEEDS to be pushed...They have said they're comfortable with $10K in forgiveness but we NEED at least $50K minimum and there is support for $50K."
"We cannot take no for an answer," Ocasio-Cortez said during the Q&A. "This will all come down to public pressure. We have a window to ORGANIZE and rally for your public officials to demand forgiveness."
Newsweek reached out to Ocasio-Cortez for further comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
