Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the labor movement to join him in his fight to get President Joe Biden to forgive student loan debt.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said there was a false narrative about who would benefit from student debt cancellation.
There is a myth that this is a problem for the wealthy or the Ivy League. People who don't want to see help for working people and poor people come up with myths.
He said that it was affecting working class people.
Personal finance says that inflation forces older Americans to make tough financial choices.
The senator was talking about the arguments made by those who don't want to cancel student debt because they think college graduates are wealthy.
President Biden has framed canceling student debt as a handout to the well-off.
Biden said in an interview with The New York Times that the public should pay for the University of Pennsylvania because of the amount of money it costs. I don't think so.
He said at a CNN town hall that it didn't make sense to cancel the loans for people who went to Harvard and Yale.
It is a myth that people with student debt have the benefit of a prestigious education behind them, as a result of the fact that Biden mentioned Ivy League schools when asked about forgiveness.
Mark Kantrowitz, a higher education expert, told CNBC that just 3% of federal student borrowers went to Ivy League colleges. Public colleges were the largest source of borrowers.
For-profit schools have come under fire for misleading students about programs and career outcomes as well as for preying on veterans and people of color.
The White House is under pressure to go further with the cancellation plan even though it was leaning towards it.
Black student loan borrowers carry an average balance of more than $50,000 a few years after graduating, and the NAACP said that $10,000 wouldn't be enough to help them.
Wisdom Cole, the national director of the NAACP's youth and college division, said that nixing just $10,000 would be "a slap in the face".
Some Republicans have said they would try to block an effort by the president to cancel the debt.
Schumer called on the labor movement to make student debt cancellation an issue that is relevant to all Americans.
Schumer told the union leaders that Biden was open to the idea and had met with him many times. We need to fight and persist until we get rid of $50,000 in student debt.
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