In Maine, the annual income is just more than $73,000 while the average student debt in the state is $33,845, according to most recent data updated this month by the Education Data Initiative. (Photo by Getty Images)
Maine’s congressional delegation and their challengers have widely varied opinions on education issues under discussion at the federal level, but despite party affiliations, they mostly agreed on not being in favor of broad student debt cancellation. While some are opposed to “handouts,” including Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, others think there can be better systems in place to help students, such as forgiving student debt for lower-income, public service professionals such as teachers, nurses and social workers.
In the past year, student loan forgiveness has been a topic of national debate as the Biden administration’s push toward canceling student debt was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Maine, the annual income is just more than $73,000 while the average student debt in the state is $33,845, according to most recent data updated this month by the Education Data Initiative.
The three incumbents, including Golden, Democratic U.S. Rep.Chellie Pingree, and independent U.S. Sen. Angus King, represent the range of opinions on whether student debt should be canceled by the federal government.
Pingree praised the cancellation of debt for more than 1 million public service workers, such as teachers, nurses and social workers, through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan, or PSLF. Last year, she also supported a bill to eliminate interest on student loans.
“This legislation would help ease the financial burden that unfairly comes with pursuing higher education and will work to reform the system that fostered this crisis in the first place,” she said of the Student Loan Interest Elimination Act.
King’s priority has been reforming student loan payments and instituting income-based limits rather than debt cancellation. In 2021, he co-sponsored a bipartisan bill seeking to reform student federal loan repayment programs, which had been introduced previously in 2015 and 2017. The bill would streamline payment options, and make sure people with student loans never have a payment greater than 15% of their monthly disposable income.
The legislation “ends the disproportionate subsidization of loan payments for high-income borrowers and sets limits for the amount of debt that can be forgiven over a certain amount of time,” King said in a statement about the bill. His office did not respond to Maine Morning Star’s questions regarding his current position on debt forgiveness.
Golden “continues to oppose broad, poorly targeted student debt relief,” a spokesperson for the campaign said.
Last year, the congressman received backlash when he broke from party lines to criticize debt relief programs, saying that he’s “always held the opinion that working class Mainers shouldn’t foot the bill for someone else’s choices.”
“The Twitterati can keep bemoaning their privileged status and demanding handouts all they want, but as far as I’m concerned, if they want free money for college, they can join the Marines and serve the country like I and so many others have in the past, and many more will in the future,” he wrote on social media.
Largely, all six challengers and a write-in candidate do not support broad student debt relief regardless of party affiliation, although some proposed alternative plans to address what they admitted was a problem.
The two candidates running to unseat Pingree, who has held southern Maine’s U.S. House seat since 2009, Republican Ron Russell and independent Ethan Alcorn, both do not support student debt forgiveness.
“These debts were contracted by individuals and need to be satisfied by those individuals,” Russell said.
Similarly, Alcorn said students ““have to be more careful about getting into debt and choosing which school they’re going to go to.”
”Where does it end? Do we start bailing people out because they can’t pay their mortgage?” Alcorn added.
Golden’s Republican challenger for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, freshman state legislator and former NASCAR driver Austin Theriault, did not respond to requests for comment.
Second District write-in candidate Diana Merenda said both the Biden administration’s forgiveness plan and the Republican-led push to oppose it further divides Americans “into their respective ‘corners.’”
“I do not support any legislation that fractures us more than we already are,” she said. “Simply put, both of these plans are manifestly unfair, whether to the student’s family or to the general taxpayer.”
King, the former governor running for his third term in the U.S. Senate, is facing three challengers: Republican Demi Kouzounas, Democrat David Costello and independent Jason Cherry.
Costello said he supported the Biden administration’s efforts to provide student loan relief “to individuals who have embarked on public service careers and are employed in comparatively lower wage jobs, like teachers, first responders, public health employees, and the military.” He did not specify whether he was in favor of broad student debt cancellation.
Cherry said reimbursing loans to the government encourages citizens to pay back into the education system so that the next generation of students can also benefit from access to student loans, which is why he opposed what he called Biden’s “clean-slate” approach.
“Without proper merit-based programs and encouragement for personal accountability, I am not sure our economy or future funding for such programs could sustain themselves,” he said.
Kouzounas did not respond to requests for comment.
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