At present there are more than 1.74 trillion dollars in student loans outstanding in the US economy. This is a massive amount of money that represents serious liabilities for millions of borrowers across the United States who are grappling with the process of repayment. This massive amount of outstanding debt also represents a tremendous liability to taxpayers. This is the result of President Biden’s efforts to cancel student loans, which—if allowed to be implemented—will transfer that enormous liability away from the borrowers who took on the debt and onto taxpayers, many of whom never enrolled in college.

In contrast, private student loans make up just a small share of that outstanding debt. At present, 133 billion dollars of that total amount were borrowed from private lenders.

The federal student loan program and the associated portfolio of outstanding loans are in complete disrepair due to MacGyver-esque efforts from the Biden Administration to cancel student loans despite no legal pathway to do so. But the private student loan industry is a well- functioning consumer credit market.

Read the full testimony here.