How exactly would we pay for total forgiveness of all student loans?

Though the petition may be aimed at the financial sector, McCluskey, associate director of Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, said the people who would be most hurt by a student loan amnesty would be taxpayers, considering most student loans are either direct federal loans or federally backed private loans.

“The people ultimately on the hook for federal student loans are federal taxpayers,” he said. “That would increase the debt and that would put taxpayers even more on the hook for even more debt.

Forgiving student loans would also effectively repeat the financial-sector bailouts of 2008 and 2009, one of the issues the protesters are decrying, McCluskey added.

“We shouldn’t do the same thing … with student loans,” he said.

With total student loan debt in America approaching $1 trillion, a new poll shows 38.2 percent of Americans somewhat or strongly agree with the loan forgiveness call. But another 41 percent of adults responding to the American Pulse Survey say they somewhat or completely disagree that college loans should be forgiven. That split is wider among coveted independent voters polled.