Biden's student-loan debt forgiveness would cost $300 billion, report says — less than half of the defense budget

• Some student debt may be canceled by the Biden administration, according to reports.

• It could come on Wednesday.

• According to the Wharton School, forgiveness could cost $300 billion.

One of the president's campaign promises was to cancel student loan debt, and the Biden administration is about to fulfill it.

As early as this week, $10,000 in student debt could be wiped out for borrowers who make less than $125,000 a year.

According to the Penn-Wharton Budget Model, forgiveness could cost as much as $300 billion this year and as much as $330 billion over the next decade.

The analysis shows that the Biden administration has decided to forgive $50,000 for all borrowers, which will cost about $820 billion this year, and add up to $980 billion over the next decade.

The student loans are unprofitable for the government. According to a July report from the GAO, federal loans are projected to cost the government $197 billion, instead of the $114 billion the Education Department estimated.

Student-loan forgiveness is much less expensive than other federal expenditures. According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending will cost almost $9 trillion over the next 10 years.

America's student loan borrowers have a debt of over $1 trillion.

Biden has said that he will make a decision on student-loan relief before August 31, when student-loan payments are due. In April, he shot down $50,000 in relief, an amount many Democratic lawmakers and advocates have been pushing for, and recent reports suggest his final amount will be around $10,000, which he pledged on the campaign trail.

Pundits and politicians argue that forgiveness would cause inflation and benefit the highest-earning people. "I hope Biden doesn't contribute to inflation macro economically by offering unreasonably generous student loan relief or micro economically by encouraging college tuition increases," said Larry Summers in a recent thread.

Republican lawmakers pushed back against broad relief due to the costs of previous policies like the payment pause and have introduced legislation to ban Biden from canceling debt broadly.

With these being the final days before a decision is made, supporters of broad debt relief have been trying to convince the president to go as big as possible. Groups like the NAACP are keeping pressure on Biden to cancel a minimum of $50,000 for every federal student loan in order to get rid of student debt in the US.

NAACP Director of Youth and College Wisdom Cole said in a statement that "Do it to reduce the racial wealth gap, do it to capture the interest of many who will participate in the November election, do it for the future of American families and communities?" You will be appreciated by every generation.

Business Insider has an article on it.