UW–Madison’s Nick Hillman, a professor with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, has shared his expertise with a range of media outlets on the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan.
Hillman is an expert in how finance, policy, and geography shape educational opportunities, and is the director of the university’s Student Success Through Applied Research (SSTAR) Lab.
On PBS Wisconsin’s “Here and Now” program on Aug. 26, Hillman told host Frederica Freyberg that despite political debate over whether Biden’s plan is too big or too small, he believes that $10,000 in cancellation “can do a lot of good for Wisconsin borrowers.”
Hillman noted two reasons for this: For those individuals who enrolled in college for a little while and then left without a degree that will pay off in the labor market, “those debts are often times less than $10,000,” he said. “So that could have a direct impact for a lot of struggling borrowers who have relatively small loans.”
“On the other side of this,” Hillman added, “there are a lot of borrowers with that size of debt.” He noted that 30 percent of all Wisconsin borrowers have less than $10,000 in debt. For that reason Biden’s $10,000 threshold will have a significant impact on a large number of borrowers overall.
Hillman also spoke with the following media outlets about Biden’s plan:
- Channel 3000/WISC-TV/Ch. 3: Breaking down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan
- WisBusiness.com: Student loan forgiveness plan could impact hundreds of thousands of borrowers in Wisconsin
- Fox 6 News (Milwaukee): 30% of Wisconsinites’ student loan debt forgiven under Biden plan
- WAOW.com/News 9 (Wausau): Wisconsin student loan debt totaling $23.1 billion
- WBAY/Ch. 2 (Green Bay): Green Bay student says he’s grateful for loan debt relief announcement
- WTMJ 620: Student loan relief: What it means for Wisconsinites
- Poverty Research and Policy podcast from UW-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty: Nick Hillman on the Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Act