Teacher Gains Viral Notoriety for Demanding That Student Loans Be Cancelled

(NewsSpace.com) – Student debt forgiveness is a hot-button subject. President Joe Biden included it as a cornerstone of his presidential campaign in 2020. However, despite his efforts, including several legal battles, he has only been able to secure certain types of forgiveness. Yet, it’s an issue Democrats refuse to give up on. A teacher recently went viral on X, formerly Twitter, for his take on it.

On January 16, Steven Cotterill, a teacher, posted on the social media platform, discussing his and his wife’s plight with student loans. He says they finished graduate school more than two decades ago. At the time, they had $70,000 in student loan debt. Over the past 23 years, they’ve made payments that have totaled more than $120,000, and yet they still owe $60,000. He ends the tweet with, “Explain to me again why student loan debt shouldn’t be cancelled.”

My wife and I left graduate school 23 years ago with a combined total of $70,000 debt.
Since then we've made $500 monthly payments for 23 years ($120,000+).
Today, we still owe $60,000.

Explain to me again why student loan debt shouldn't be cancelled.

— Steven Cotterill (@socialiststeve6) January 16, 2024

Naturally, his message was received with a lot of backlash. Many accused Cotterill and his wife of not refinancing when the rates dropped, not taking advantage of the three-year gap in payments due to the pandemic, and paying too little on the loans—the latter of which he responds with; he and his wife are both teachers. One user responded by saying it shouldn’t be forgiven “because [it] isn’t the responsibility of the people who didn’t make the voluntary decisions [the couple] did,” which is a common sentiment towards forgiveness. Taxpayers don’t want to be on the hook for someone else’s debt.

Cotterill wasn’t without his supporters, though. Some called student loans a scam and said “big banks shouldered their way into student loans,” contributing to the crisis.

The post has gone viral, gaining 11.6 million views and more than 17,000 responses as of the time of writing. It’s clear that it continues to and will continue to be a hot-button topic for the foreseeable future.