EW's latest expansive reform proposal calls for universal free public college, as well as cancelling up to $50k in student debt for people with household incomes up to $100k. In addition,

It provides substantial debt cancellation for every person with household income between $100,000 and $250,000. The $50,000 cancellation amount phases out by $1 for every $3 in income above $100,000, so, for example, a person with household income of $130,000 gets $40,000 in cancellation, while a person with household income of $160,000 gets $30,000 in cancellation.

It offers no debt cancellation to people with household income above $250,000 (the top 5%).
https://medium.com/@teamwarren/im-ca...f-a246cd0f910f

This proposal has drawn the expected critical response from both left and right, but all these critics appear have a blind spot. I draw this conclusion from their universal fondness for the argument that people with student debt don't need (and/or shouldn't get) debt forgiveness because these predominantly middle-class people with degrees have a massive lifetime earnings premium that allows them to repay their loans.

This is more or less true, but what these critics neglect to consider is that the six year graduation rate in the US is just under 60%. Most (but not all) of those 40% who don't graduate in six years don't graduate at all, but the vast majority nevertheless also accrue student debt--which most struggle to repay. Those who drop out are disproportionately likely to be from low-SES backgrounds, and financial struggles contribute to their risk of dropping out (eg. due to having to work more hours while attending college, financial distress in the family, etc).

There isn't much good data on student debt owed by people who fail to graduate, but one recent survey found that they may have around half the average student debt of those who do graduate, close to $14k vs ca. $27k. An analysis of another dataset found that dropouts owed a median $7k in debt, but this seems to have been during an outlier year during which median student debt was ~40% lower than in the previous and following years so I'm taking that figure with a pinch of salt. Regardless, it's evident that dropouts struggle to repay even their smaller loans, for whatever reasons: around half are in default, and many others fail to make any real progress on paying down the principal even when they manage pay the interest.

For these reasons, I believe the popular characterization of student debt holders is misleading, and some of the criticism of Warren's proposal that stems from the misleading framing misses the mark both from a policy perspective (debt forgiveness is much more generous to the less-well-off than is commonly believed) as well as from a purely political perspective (debt forgiveness may hold a broader appeal than commonly believed, with potential for buy-in from several socioeconomic strata). I also think it's a shame the US public debate on student debt consistently neglects those who accrue student debt without graduating, because acknowledging their existence immediately offers a promising approach to mitigating the student debt crisis and related socioeconomic problems: direct funding towards resources and interventions that decrease likelihood of dropping out, eg. improved highschool education that reduces the need for costly and discouraging remedial college classes, better support systems at colleges/unis (some evidence to suggest this is eminently feasible & effective), etc.

I think that, from a policy perspective, Warren's proposal is flawed, but I believe it merits a more nuanced debate than I've seen so far. From a political perspective, I believe it's very interesting, and I get the feeling Warren has understood the core of European (and esp. Scandinavian) approaches to welfare in a way that even Sanders hasn't: strong and broad middle-class buy-in.