New Report on Student Debt Cancellation; Coverage in Marketwatch

Today, JFI’s Millennial Student Debt team published “A First Look at Student Debt Cancellation,” the fifteenth report in our ongoing series examining the impact of student debt across the country. Find the overview and full paper here.

Jillian Berman at Marketwatch outlined the report’s findings, and their significance:

“The analysis is the first to provide a sense of who has benefited from the $153 billion in debt cancellation over the past few years and how that relief has affected them. And it comes as the Biden administration is pitching a debt-relief plan that, if implemented, could impact more than 25 million borrowers …

“The debt relief allowed these borrowers to pursue other financial priorities, like buying a home or taking on a loan to buy a car, the researchers found.”

The report authors, Laura Beamer, Jack Landry, Eduard Nilaj, Sérgio Pinto, and Marshall Steinbaum, note:

“We show that cancellation causes a 5 percentage point increase in the probability of being a homeowner two years after cancellation, a $1000 increase in balance on auto loans, and 5-10 point increase in credit score.”