(Headline USA) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., one of the leading congressional voices for student loan debt forgiveness, owes up to $50,000 in student loan debt, according to financial disclosures.
Ocasio-Cortez’s latest filing shows she owed the Department of Education between $15,000 and $50,000 for her student loans as of 2022.
She repeatedly has called on the Biden administration to “forgive” millions of dollars from borrowers — a policy that she would benefit from directly.
“Now would be a great time to cancel student loan debt, take significant climate action, and pass voting rights,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter in May 2022.
She even demanded more from the Biden administration after President Joe Biden released a plan in August 2022 to “forgive” up to $20,000 worth of student loan debt for certain borrowers.
“I am very grateful for this watershed moment of a first step — it is so encouraging, thrilling, and has already changed SO many people’s lives. But I am also thinking about how this still leaves a question mark for those in the highest amounts of debt, who need the most amount of help. So let’s celebrate and keep going,” she wrote on Instagram.
Ocasio-Cortez isn’t the only Democrat who would benefit from student loan forgiveness. Fellow “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., owes more than $100,000 to the Department of Education for her law degree, according to financial disclosures. She has demanded that the Biden administration forgive at least $50,000 in student loan debt for borrowers.
“I will continue to push for education debt cancellation of $50K or more, and I know many people out on the streets will do the same,” Tlaib tweeted last August. “This is not the end, this is just the beginning when it comes to bringing opportunity and equity to all.”
Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this summer after the justices ruled the president abused his constitutional authority by trying to unilaterally cancel debt.
