This piece was originally published at CNN.com
What if the government wiped away everyone's student debt?
Researchers at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College say it's a proposal worth considering.
It's a "radical solution to the student debt crisis, but one that deserves serious attention, given the radical scope of the problem," wrote Marshall Steinbaum, one of the authors of the report, in a blog post.
There is currently $1.4 trillion of outstanding student loan debt in the US, held by about 44 million people.The researchers looked at what would happen if the government canceled all federal loans (the majority of student debt) and paid off all privately owned loans -— as a one-time policy.