Supporters of Biden’s student debt relief plan are pointing to PPP debt relief to prove that opponents of the plan are hypocrites. Are they right?
No, because there are public interest considerations attached to PPP relief that do not apply to student debt. Student loans are contracts entered into voluntarily; the PPP was the result of the involuntary closure of businesses for overriding public health reasons. In addition, the economy would have collapsed, and unemployment would have skyrocketed, without the PPP; without astronomical student loans, the debtors would have been forced to seek out a less expensive source of higher education, most likely at no ultimate cost to themselves. Finally, the PPP was the result of an extreme experience that is highly unlikely to be repeated; you can expect new calls for student debt relief in the future, as the problem of excessive costs has hardly disappeared, and may well be exacerbated by the relief program.