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It’s no secret that the United States has a student loan debt problem. Recent figures from the U.S. Department of Education suggest that almost 40 percent of students who took out a loan in 2004 will default on it by 2023. The question is, what should be done about it?

The answer depends who you ask. Several Democratic presidential candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have floated plans that they say would completely wipe out student debt in America. For its part, the Department of Education says it is considering spinning off the $1.6 trillion in debt that it oversees into its own agency. But how would that look? And would the debt actually be overseen by another government agency or is the Education Department’s plan, in effect, a step towards the privatization of federal student loans?

Today on AirTalk, we’ll discuss the specifics of the plans that certain Democratic presidential candidates have laid out and debate the Department of Education’s proposal to create a new agency that would take over the federal student loan portfolio.

This segment is being updated

Guests:

Paul Fain, news editor at Inside Higher Education, an online publication covering postsecondary and higher education news; he tweets @paulfain

Mark Kantrowitz, student financial aid expert focused on college affordability and publisher and vice president of research for Savingforcollege.com, a guide to planning, saving and paying for college; he tweets @mkant

Mary Clare Amselem, education policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington D.C.; her research focuses on higher education policy