Recently, President Biden promised to cancel $10,000 of student loans for low- to middle-income borrowers. This would cancel approximately $300 billion of student loan debt that the federal government has financed. 

President Biden pointed out that the federal student loan debt “is a significant burden on America’s middle class.” But the amount owed by current and former students is reported as an asset on the federal government’s balance sheet. As indicated by the Data-z chart below, in 2008, the government reported a student loan asset of $135 billion, which has ballooned to $1.6 trillion.