New Hampshire Democratic Gov. Chris Sununu said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday that he opposes loan relief measures, despite the benefits the financial relief could bring to his constituents. Sununu’s home state is ranked as having the highest rate of student loan debt this year by personal finance website WalletHub, with an average of $34,085 in outstanding loans, according to the Education Data Initiative. “I kind of take exception with people, especially outside of Washington, saying this is a student loan crisis,” Sununu told CNN’s Dana Bash. “What’s the crisis? People are getting degrees. They’re getting jobs. We’ve got more high-paying jobs than ever before for young people. They’re low-interest loans. They’ve been deferred for a few years.” Nationally, the average federal student loan debt balance is $37,667, an amount that 83% of non-homeowners say prevents them from buying a home, according to the National Association of Realtors. Before the moratorium on student loan payments implemented during the pandemic, the average monthly loan payment was $300. “The average loan is — it’s high,” Sununu told CNN. “It’s about $43,000 in America. It’s a lot of money. But you can write that check for $200 or $300 a month and pay it off. One thing I looked at and it was kind of interesting, we have — the average mortgage in America is about $240,000 , right, five times — four or five times the student loan. We have a mortgage crisis, right? How about car loans? Are we going to pay off car loans next?” Federal student loans for undergraduates currently have an interest rate of 4.99 percent for the 2022-23 school year, while graduate students have interest rates of 6.54 percent or 7.54 percent for unsubsidized and PLUS loans. By comparison, the average interest rate on a new car is 4.07% and the average interest rate on a 15-year fixed rate mortgage is 5.08%. Just under 10% of mortgages in 2020 were backed by Federal Housing Administration loans, while about 92% of student loans are held by the Department of Education. Before the Bill Clinton administration, the federal government had zero student loans, but debt now accounts for nearly 20% of all U.S. government assets, according to a 2020 economic report. In the event of a loan default, the government has broad possibilities to get her funds back, including garnishing wages and tax returns. Student loans are also more difficult to discharge in bankruptcy than other types of loans. “[I]it’s inherently unfair, right?’ Sununu told CNN. “This is an arbitrary selection of a group of people, and we’re going to arbitrarily cancel their debt with the stroke of a pen, which, again, won’t even pass Congress. This is quite illegal. It adds hundreds of billions of dollars at a time when we are trying to get inflation under control. This is exacerbating the inflationary crisis.” While some lawmakers, largely Republicans, questioned the legality of President Biden’s action this week to forgive between $10,000 and $20,000 in debt for federal borrowers earning less than $125,000, the White House supported the Higher Education Opportunity Relief Act for Students (“HEROES”). 2003 — first enacted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to provide relief from student loan requirements during specified periods of national emergency — “the Secretary grants [of Education] principle that could be used to implement a targeted loan cancellation program to address the economic damage of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Sununu representatives did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
