Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Warren’s College-Loan Plan Is a Subsidy for the Comfortable Class

Forgiving loans today is a transfer payment to people who will earn several million dollars over their working lives.

April 23, 2019 at 7:00 AM EDT

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

The price tag keeps going up.
Photographer: Scott Eisen/Getty Images

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Many progressives are cheering Senator Elizabeth Warren’s new proposal that promises to eliminate all student loan debt for three quarters of the 45 million Americans who owe college loans. They are also applauding the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate’s call for college to be universal, with free tuition at every public two- and four-year college. And she proposes a huge expansion of federal grants to make non-tuition expenses more affordable, allowing students to graduate debt free.

The cost? $1.25 trillion over 10 years.

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