--- title: How 2020 Democrats' Student Loan Debt Proposals Compare description: Student loan forgiveness has become a hot topic in the 2020 Democratic primary, with two of the top liberals putting forward competing plans canonical: https://time.com/5613425/student-loan-forgiveness-bernie-sanders/ author: Madeleine Joung article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-06-24T19:31:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:56:54.489Z article:section: Politics og:title: Here's How 2020 Democrats' Student Loan Debt Proposals Compare og:description: Bernie Sanders put forward his own proposal og:url: https://time.com/5613425/student-loan-forgiveness-bernie-sanders/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta13669f6f3eb7328/69894afd09208fe5fb413f45/bernie_sanders_iowa_2020.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: bernie_sanders_iowa_2020.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's How 2020 Democrats' Student Loan Debt Proposals Compare twitter:description: Bernie Sanders put forward his own proposal twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta13669f6f3eb7328/69894afd09208fe5fb413f45/bernie_sanders_iowa_2020.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's How 2020 Democrats' Student Loan Debt Proposals Compare by [Madeleine Joung](https://time.com/author/madeleine-joung/) ## Madeleine Joung Jun 24, 2019 7:31 PM UTC  Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at the Iowa Democratic Party's Hall of Fame Dinner in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on June 9, 2019. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at the Iowa Democratic Party's Hall of Fame Dinner in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on June 9, 2019.Scott Olson—Getty Images by [Madeleine Joung](https://time.com/author/madeleine-joung/) ## Madeleine Joung Jun 24, 2019 7:31 PM UTC Elizabeth Warren and Julían Castro want to help pay off student loan debt. Bernie Sanders wants to forgive it entirely. Student loan forgiveness has become a hot topic in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, with two of the top liberals putting forward competing plans. Here’s a closer look at the proposals. ## What are the plans?  Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pauses while speaking during a forum on Friday, June 21, 2019, in Miami. Brynn Anderson—AP Building on his plans to make community college tuition-and-fee free in his [2017](https://www.vice.com/en%5Fus/article/7x4jk9/bernie-sanders-on-why-the-time-is-now-to-make-college-tuition-free) College for All proposal, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled a new plan on Monday to [cancel all student loan debt in America](https://time.com/5613022/bernie-sanders-democratic-party-college-student-debt-bill/), partnering with Reps. Pramila Jayapal, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. On Monday, the group announced a new proposal that would relieve $1.6 trillion of debt for [approximately 45 million people](https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/23/politics/bernie-sanders-student-loan-debt-cancellation/index.html), regardless of income, [including](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sanders-to-propose-canceling-entire-16-trillion-in-us-student-loan-debt-escalating-democratic-policy-battle/2019/06/23/1eed053a-9561-11e9-aadb-74e6b2b46f6a%5Fstory.html) all private and graduate school debt as well. Sanders’ support for this latest plan represents an escalation in his policy arms race with Warren, who released a plan in April that would eliminate up to $50,000 of student loan debt for people earning less than $100,000 per year. In total, Warren’s proposal would cancel approximately [$640 billion](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/22/elizabeth-warren-student-loan-debt-1284286) of student debt for approximately [42 million people](https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/06/17/elizabeth-warren-student-loan-debt-forgiveness/). At a press conference on Monday morning, Sanders cut off a reporter who tried to ask a question about Warren’s proposal. Julian Castro, the former Housing and Urban Development Secretary and San Antonio mayor, has also called for partial student loan debt relief as a part of his larger education plan. On his campaign website, he has [said](https://www.julianforthefuture.com/news-events/people-first-education/) that monthly payments should be capped at $0 until borrowers are earning 250% of the federal poverty line. Sanders and Castro have both said they would aim to make public college, community college, and trade schools / [technical and vocational programs](https://www.julianforthefuture.com/news-events/people-first-education/) tuition-free. The Sanders-backed bill would allocate [$48 billion](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/sanders-to-propose-canceling-entire-16-trillion-in-us-student-loan-debt-escalating-democratic-policy-battle/2019/06/23/1eed053a-9561-11e9-aadb-74e6b2b46f6a%5Fstory.html) per year for this purpose. Warren, by contrast, has written that she would eliminate tuition and fees at [two- and four-year public colleges.](https://medium.com/@teamwarren/im-calling-for-something-truly-transformational-universal-free-public-college-and-cancellation-of-a246cd0f910f) In addition, the Sanders bill would triple work study, expand Pell grants, and allocate [$1.3 billion per year](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/23/18714615/bernie-sanders-free-college-for-all-2020-student-loan-debt) for low-income students at historically black colleges and universities. By comparison, Castro’s education plan would allocate more than double that amount to HBCUs, at [$3 billion annually](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/presidential-hopeful-juli-n-castro-unveils-sweeping-education-plan-n1004971). ## How would they pay for it?  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks during the North American Building Trades Unions Conference at the Washington Hilton April 10, 2019 in Washington, DC. Zach Gibson—Getty Images “Our proposal, which costs $2.2 trillion over 10 years, will be fully paid for by a tax on Wall Street speculation,” Sanders said at a press conference on Monday morning. The [proposed taxes](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-student-debt-plan-wants-would-erase-college-loans-by-taxing-wall-street/) are a 0.5% tax on stock trades, 0.1% on bond trades, and 0.005% on derivative trades. Warren’s campaign estimates that her plans for debt relief and tuition-free college would cost [$1.25 trillion](https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/22/politics/elizabeth-warren-student-debt-college-tuition-plan/index.html) over ten years. She would aim to pay for it with an [“ultra-millionaire” tax](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-25/senator-warren-proposes-ultra-millionaire-tax-of-as-much-as-3): an annual 2% tax on wealth above $50 million, with an additional 1 percent on wealth exceeding $1 billion. Castro’s education plan — which includes other initiatives including universal pre-K, modernization of schools, and a federal tax credit to increase teacher pay — would cost approximately $1.5 trillion. His campaign [told the _Texas Tribune_](https://www.texastribune.org/2019/05/13/julian-castro-education-plan/) that he would pay for it by replacing the Republican tax overhaul of 2017 with an unspecified “more fair tax plan.” ## What do voters think?  Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro speaks at a campaign appearance at Bell Gardens High School, in Los Angeles county, on March 4, 2019 in Bell Gardens, California. Mario Tama—Getty Images Warren’s plan is popular, with a Politico/Morning Consult poll indicating that a [majority of registered voters supported the idea, when it was presented](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/elizabeth-warrens-plan-to-cancel-student-debt-popular-with-voters.html) to them with no attribution. It remains unclear how much approval the Sanders or Castro plans currently have with voters. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5613425/student-loan-forgiveness-bernie-sanders/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5613425/student-loan-forgiveness-bernie-sanders/"},"headline":"Here's How 2020 Democrats' Student Loan Debt Proposals Compare","datePublished":"2019-06-24T19:31:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:56:54.489Z","description":"Student loan forgiveness has become a hot topic in the 2020 Democratic primary, with two of the top liberals putting forward competing plans","url":"https://time.com/5613425/student-loan-forgiveness-bernie-sanders/","keywords":["Education","democrats","Higher Education","Student Loans","Bernie Sanders","2020 Election"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta13669f6f3eb7328/69894afd09208fe5fb413f45/bernie_sanders_iowa_2020.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Madeleine Joung","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/madeleine-joung/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta13669f6f3eb7328/69894afd09208fe5fb413f45/bernie_sanders_iowa_2020.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"bernie_sanders_iowa_2020.jpg","caption":"Democratic Presidential Candidates Attend Iowa Democratic Party Hall Of Fame Celebration","creditText":"Scott Olson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/education/","name":"Education"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5613425/student-loan-forgiveness-bernie-sanders/","name":"Here's How 2020 Democrats' Student Loan Debt Proposals Compare"}}]}] ```