JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon says we need to "fix the broken parts" of student lending in the United States.
"What we've done is a disgrace and it's hurting America," JP Morgan's chairman and CEO told Yahoo Finance in an interview Tuesday.
With $1.6 trillion outstanding student debt in the United States, student lending is crippling many Americans. Today the average college graduate leaves school $30,000 in the debt, up from $10,000 in the 1990s.
"I think they should look at all parts of student lending, fix the broken parts, and then forgive those people [who] need forgiveness, and then help people get into school, and then make sure the schools are responsible in getting the kids out," Dimon said.
Student loan debt has been an issue addressed by many 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, most recently Sen. Bernie Sanders, who announced a plan on Monday to erase the country's outstanding student debt. The legislation would release 45 million Americans from their student debt and be paid for with a new tax on financial transactions on Wall Street. In April, Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposed that borrowers with household incomes under $100,000 would have $50,000 of their student debt canceled, and those who earn $100,000 to $250,000 would be eligible for relief on a sliding scale.
"How they go about taxing, I'll leave that to the politicians to figure that out," Dimon said.
JP Morgan exited student lending in 2013.