HAMPTON ROADS, Virginia – A Change.org petition to get rid of student loan debt for millions of borrowers reached 830,000 signatures on Saturday night and that number continues to increase hour by hour.

Founder of StudentLoanJustice Alan Collinge launched the petition in March. It has gained momentum as many Americans still find themselves out of work and options in the pandemic.

“This loan system is a joke,” Collinge said.

Collinge believes eliminating federal student loans – about 85 percent of all student debt – will kickstart the economy.

“The whole loan system is a catastrophic failure,” Collinge said. “This pandemic gives us the perfect opportunity both to massively stimulate the economy without the need for tax credits, without increasing the national debt, and also quite frankly, to get rid of this nationally threatening loan system. and to come up with a much more fair, efficient, rational way of financing higher education in this country.

Collinge calls on President Trump or President-elect Biden to achieve this by signing an executive order and releasing the more than $ 1 trillion in total student debt that he says borrowers are drowning in.

“Eighty percent of all borrowers were never going to be able to repay their loans even before the pandemic,” he said. “It’s just a fact.”

ODU economics professor Bob McNab, Ph.D, remains skeptical of the widespread cancellation of student loans.

“If you look at President-elect Biden’s proposals and the current makeup of Congress, I think there might be moderate relief in terms of lower interest rates and increased withholdings for those in difficulty. economic, ”McNab said. “But the widespread adoption of student loan cancellation for millions of borrowers is probably a bridge too far into 2021.”

The huge federal deficit associated with a strained economy from COVID-19 is why McNab said the full loan cancellation is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

In addition, unless Congress takes action, the Federal student loan relief will end at midnight on December 31.

“We are currently facing a period of economic uncertainty,” McNab said. “We still don’t know what an economic stimulus package might look like by the end of the year, if at all, and this uncertainty will hamper our prospects for recovery in 2021. “

Collinge disagreed.

“It’s completely absurd,” he said. “There is no better way to stimulate the economy right now than by canceling this catastrophically failed loan scheme. Taxpayers paid off these loans many years ago…. Taxpayers don’t have to pay twice.

StudentLoanJustice began requesting loan cancellation in August 2019.

To sign the online petition, click on here.

In the meantime, Collinge has said he will continue his efforts to overhaul the current loan system and replace it with one that he says is more rational.