Half of the country doesn't go to college, many because they can't afford to, and forgiving this batch of student loan debt doesn't fix the problem or hand down consequences to the universities that see students as a cash grab rather than the next generation to educate. It's just a terrible short sighted solution that only helps a fraction of people and angers an even larger fraction of people. A more pragmatic short term solution is to let the recipients be able to declare bankruptcy and be done with it, but that's going to be even less popular because then everyone involved deals with their share of the consequences. Everyone would rather get "free" money.