# Kamala Harris' Student Debt Forgiveness Plan On July 27th, 2019, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris tweeted a loan forgiveness proposal so narrow, requiring Pell Grant recipients to start a business lasting three years in a disadvantaged community, that Twitter users spent the weekend mocking its specificity. By that evening, parody tweets added absurd qualifications like beating Halo 3 on legendary without dying, and Business Insider wrote the backlash up within 48 hours. ## Origin On July 27th, 2019, Kamala Harris tweeted that as president she would set up a student loan debt forgiveness program for Pell Grant recipients who start a business operating for three years in disadvantaged communities. The post pulled over 2,400 retweets and 11,000 likes[1]. The underlying proposal was aimed at closing the opportunity gap for Black entrepreneurs and Historically Black Colleges & Universities, paired with $12 billion in direct capital[2]. Harris posted a follow-up tweet two days later trying to frame the loan piece as one component of that larger package[9]. By then the parody wave was already running. - **Platform:** Twitter - **Creator:** Kamala Harris (proposal); @InternetHippo and @leyawn (earliest viral parodies) - **Date:** 2019 ## Overview Harris' proposal offered $20,000 of loan forgiveness to Pell Grant recipients who launched and ran a business in a disadvantaged community for three years, with debt interest deferred during that window[2]. Critics zeroed in on how few people could realistically clear every box, since businesses founded in disadvantaged communities and by people of color already see lower survival rates than average[4]. The parody format that followed stacked more and more unrelated conditions onto the original sentence structure. @leyawn's version kept Harris' bureaucratic voice but tacked on qualifications like finishing Halo 3 on legendary without dying[7]. @ughitsaaron compared the plan to a hyper-specific novelty shirt sold to a tiny demographic[8]. The joke worked because the real proposal already read like a parody of means-tested policy design. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Kamala Harris' Student Debt Forgiveness Plan? It is a July 2019 proposal from presidential candidate Kamala Harris to erase $20,000 of student loan debt for Pell Grant recipients who start a business operating for three years in a disadvantaged community[1][2]. ### Where did Kamala Harris' Student Debt Forgiveness Plan come from? Harris announced the plan at an event tied to Black entrepreneurship, then summarized it in a July 27th, 2019 tweet that drew immediate mockery for its narrow qualifications[1][3]. ### What does Kamala Harris' Student Debt Forgiveness Plan mean as a meme? Twitter users treated the specificity as self-parody, writing fake versions that stacked more unrelated conditions like beating Halo 3 on legendary without dying[7][8]. ### How do you use Kamala Harris' Student Debt Forgiveness Plan format? People typically mimic the official-sounding sentence structure of Harris' tweet and append absurd qualifiers, as @leyawn did with video game references[7]. ### Is Kamala Harris' Student Debt Forgiveness Plan still popular? The specific parody wave was a July 2019 moment, though the plan still gets cited in retrospectives of over-targeted Democratic primary policy ideas[3][4]. ## References 1. [https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1155305122911723526]() 2. [https://www.themarysue.com/kamala-harris-student-loan-forgiveness-plan/]() 3. [https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-student-debt-proposal-confused-people-2019-7]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kamala-harris-student-debt-forgiveness-plan]() 5. [https://twitter.com/InternetHippo/status/1155501378011369472]() 6. [https://twitter.com/JohnnyFirecloud/status/1155503016201474049]() 7. [https://twitter.com/leyawn/status/1155887041013583873]() 8. [https://twitter.com/ughitsaaron/status/1155481634369626112]() 9. [https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1155592269006868489]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/kamala-harris-student-debt-forgiveness-plan Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library