Government subsidized sudent loan forgiveness is a regressive tax, though, which makes it quite unpopular in the non educated that on average earn less.

The root cause is still cultural. Nobody wants to pay taxes that are helping someone else. Whether that "other" is in a different economic class, different race, different gender, has different political beliefs, lives in a different state, it's always the same mentality: "I don't want my tax dollars to pay for people I have determined to be 'others' and culturally different from me." Heaven forbid someone who doesn't deserve it or doesn't need it, get help.