Almost 20% of voters cite student loan debt as a key factor in their voting decisions

Eighteen percent of people say student loan debt will have a major influence on their vote in the upcoming presidential election, according to a Bankrate survey.

That figure rises to 28% among those who hold student loan debt for themselves and 30% who hold debt for someone else.

The survey comes a month after the Biden administration canceled an additional $7.7 billion in student debt, bringing the administration’s total debt relief to $167 billion for 4.75 million people.

That’s approximately 10% of all federal student debt, much less than the $430 billion in loan forgiveness under President Joe Biden’s original plan, which the Supreme Court struck down last year.

A recent poll revealed that only 30% of adults approve of Biden’s handling of student loan debt, a major focus of his 2020 presidential election campaign, while 40% disapprove.

Millennials with student debt are by far the most likely to say student loans are important to their vote, with 35% listing it as a major influence, according to the Bankrate survey. Only 22% of Generation Z and 24% of Generation X debtholders said the same.

Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of people with student loan debt say they are having trouble affording their monthly payments or have skipped at least one monthly payment since payments resumed in October 2023.

However, the share of those who think student loan debt is a national crisis is down 3 percentage points from last year, from 32% to 29%. The amount who think the federal government hasn’t done enough to help borrowers has also decreased, down to 27% from 31% last year.

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People who hold student loan debt for themselves are more likely to say the government hasn’t done enough, but that figure is also down from last year, from 48% in 2023 to 35% in 2024.

Former President Donald Trump, who paused loan payments and interest during the COVID-19 pandemic, praised the Supreme Court’s decision to rule against Biden’s original plan, calling the plan “very unfair to the millions and millions of people who paid their debt through hard work and diligence.”