New Higher Education Finance Research covered in Marketwatch

JFI’s Higher Education Finance team just published a new research paper, “Student Debt Cancellation: Evidence from Credit Reporting Panel Data.” Marketwatch covered the paper’s findings in depth:

On his way out of office, President Joe Biden touted his record on student-debt cancellation, noting that his administration approved nearly $190 billion in student-debt relief for more than 5 million borrowers. 

It’s still too early to get a full picture of who received the relief and the impact it’s had on their lives. Tens of thousands of those borrowers had their debt forgiveness approved in the waning days of Biden’s presidency, and many others are still waiting for their loans to actually be wiped out. 

But new research suggests that borrowers who had their debt forgiven were worse off financially at the time of cancellation than those who didn’t receive the benefit. In addition, getting rid of the debt freed them up to buy homes and use credit for other big purchases, like cars. 

Read the post from Jillian Berman.