For the last several years, the burden of student loan debt has crippled a generation. Young people acquired massive amounts of debt for loans that many of them should not have qualified for in the first place. Faced with payments on loan balances that they could never hope to repay-even with a degree in their field-these people cannot overcome their debt.

These loan balances, or the enormous payments required to repay them, keep hardworking Americans from qualifying for home and car loans. Who wants to spend $100,000 to be a teacher, make $40,000-$50,000 a year, and drive your leftover car that you inherited from your parents back home to your apartment every day after school because your debt to income ratio prevents you from buying either? How many people-like my husband-worked a civilian job plus deployed with the National Guard (nine days after our son was born) just trying to make a dent in his loan balance?

This global pandemic is making us rethink our new normal. The government is sending out stimulus checks to keep our economy from tanking. Why not erase the debt of so many hardworking, educated PROFESSIONALS who are proving their worth as essential service workers right now? Let lifting this burden be the stimulus we actually need.