The Biden administration¡¯s student loan forgiveness initiative is?stirring some interest in the idea in Canada, though with the more realistic outcome a possible improvement in borrower repayment terms.

The New Democratic Party of Canada, the nation¡¯s progressive voice and third-biggest political party, holding about 20 per cent of popular support nationwide, called last year for?cancelling up to C$20,000?(?13,000) per borrower in federal student loan debt.

Such widespread student loan forgiveness still seems unlikely in Canada, although the persisting US debate over the matter has helped draw Canadians¡¯s attention to their nation¡¯s own affordability challenges, said Erika Shaker, director of education policy at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

¡°It brings the notion of compensating for the downloading of the costs of higher education onto students and families back into the realm of the possible,¡± Ms Shaker said.

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Joe Biden, largely meeting a 2020 campaign promise, last month granted more than $300 billion (?260 billion) in?student debt relief to more than 43 million borrowers, in amounts between $10,000 and $20,000 per person.

His move was driven in part by recognition that while an imperfect solution to the nation¡¯s ballooning problems with college affordability, it was one major action the president appeared allowed by law to take without further action in the long-stalemated US Congress.

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Canada¡¯s parliamentary system gives prime minister Justin Trudeau a similar bottom-line power, although with markedly different calculations in a country where college affordability, while a rising concern, is far less dire.

In the US, more than 45 million student borrowers owe?at least $1.6 trillion, for the nation¡¯s second-largest form of household debt, behind only housing. In Canada, with a far more subsidised environment and about a tenth of the US population, 2 million student borrowers owe the federal government?. A??during the last federal election in 2019 estimated a first-year cost of C$16 billion ¨C 1/25th of the Biden initiative ¨C to forgive student loan debt for graduates earning less than C$70,000 per year.

The leader of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, in his call last year for C$20,000 per person in federal student loan forgiveness, described young Canadians as ¡°being buried in debt¡±. And while the NDP is part of a coalition agreement that keeps Mr Trudeau in office, Mr Singh castigated the prime minister as being ¡°forced to help students throughout the pandemic¡±.

Despite such rhetoric, Ms Shaker said, the topic of post-secondary education overall is ¡°shockingly absent from the political debate¡± ¨C both during the 2019 election and in the subsequent agreements through which the NDP has been upholding the Trudeau government.

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To the degree that student loan debt has been an issue in Canada, she said, the focus has been on the repayment threshold ¨C the amount of annual income below which graduates can delay student loan repayments to the government. Canada¡¯s current repayment threshold is C$25,000, and the Trudeau government has talked of raising it to C$40,000 or C$50,000.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com