Buttigieg’s college debt draws attention to issue

Candidates offering plans to ease burden

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg knows firsthand the burden of six-figure student loan debt. He and his husband, Chasten, are far from alone, though, and their personal college indebtedness is helping to keep the issue on the national stage.

With loans totaling more than $130,000, they are among the 43 million people in the United States who owe federal student loan debt.

The debtors are so numerous and the total debt so high — more than $1.447 trillion, according to federal statistics — that several of the Democratic candidates have made major policy proposals to address the crisis. Their ideas include wiping away debt, lowering interest rates, expanding programs that tie repayment terms to income and making college free or debt-free.

One of the most detailed plans has come from Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who says she would entirely erase student debt for 75 percent of borrowers while making public colleges and universities free. Her plan would be paid for by a tax on “ultra-millionaires,” those households with a net worth of $50 million or more.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has outlined a plan to make public universities tuition-free and says he wants to lower student loan rates and “substantially lower student debt.”

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas stops short of advocating for programs to cancel all debt, like Warren wants to do. Instead, he has suggested wiping away debt for people who go into jobs where there’s a manpower shortage, such as doctors in rural areas, but it’s not clear which professions would qualify. In other campaign news:

■ Sen. Kamala Harris told a crowd in South Carolina her prosecutorial credentials make her uniquely qualified to take on President Donald Trump.

“We’ve got to hold this guy accountable by prosecuting the case in front of the American people against four more years of this administration,” Harris told a gathering of the state conference of the NAACP. “And I’ve prosecuted a lot of cases. But rarely one with this much evidence.”

■ Several candidates attacked Trump as harmful to LGBTQ Americans in speeches in front of the Iowa State Capitol.

Sanders promised to unify Americans behind a push to “end all forms of discrimination.”

O’Rourke said Trump’s discriminatory actions and rhetoric “doesn’t just offend our sensibilities — it fundamentally changes who we are as a country.”

Charlie Neibergall The Associated Press Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks during the Capital City Pride Fest on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa.