57% of Americans who've already paid off their student loans support Elizabeth Warren's plan to cancel 42 million Americans' college debt
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat and 2020 presidential candidate, made headlines last week when she unveiled an ambitious proposal to cancel student-loan debt and make public college free for all.
- A new INSIDER poll found that 57% of Americans at least somewhat support Warren's plan to cancel 42 million Americans' student debt.
- And the plan even found majority support - 57% - among respondents who've already finished paying off their student debt.
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A solid majority of Americans - 57% - who've already paid off their student-loan debt support Sen. Elizabeth Warren's ambitious new plan to cancel tens of millions of Americans' student debt, according to a new INSIDER poll.
The Massachusetts Democrat's proposal would forgive $50,000 in student loan debt for every American whose family makes up to $100,000, and households that make between $100,000 and $250,000 would get a sliding portion of their debt cancelled. In addition, Warren's plan would make all public higher education, including community colleges, tuition- and fee-free.
INSIDER's poll found that 82% of Americans who are currently paying off student loans support Warren's plan to forgive their debt. Notably, a majority of respondents - 54% - who didn't take out any student loans to pay for higher education support the plan, as do 53% of those who didn't attend college or graduate school.
Overall, 57% of Americans at least somewhat support the 2020 candidate's debt cancellation proposal and 21% opposed the measure. 13% of respondents did not either support or oppose the idea while 9% said they didn't know how they felt about the plan.
Warren's plan is vast in scope: it would eliminate all student debt for 75% of Americans who have it, and get rid of at least some debt for 95% of the almost 45 million affected Americans, according to an analysis by four social policy professors released by Warren's campaign.
The poll also found deep support among Democratic primary voters. 77% of Democrats who said they'd likely vote in the 2020 presidential primary were either somewhat or strongly supportive of the proposal's debt cancellation.
SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. This survey had a total 1,144 respondents, a margin of error plus or minus 3.07 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.