It's not meant to help the present situation. It's meant to help with elections.

or maybe it's meant to actually help the students, and it's something that he can do without the opposing party conducting lawfare and stopping it? I don't know, I always look at the simplest motivation for actions first.

could this be related to the new round of QE, the $1.5T influx to coporations and possible negative interest rates? Not an economist here, but wondering if holding debt could be bad in the near future, if there is some other kind of shell game/buck-passing going on here? this just doesn't smell right.

The opposing party is traditionally in favor of student debt forgiveness, whereas Trump's party is traditionally opposed to it. If Trump just wanted to help students, he had ample opportunity to do so before now.

The simplest motivation is always self-interest and, for a politician seeking re-election, winning that election.

That opposing party was traditionally in favor of bringing troops home from Syria and Afghanistan, until Trump did it.

Members of his own party were opposed to it as well - the US government tends to be pro war regardless of party affiliation. Meanwhile, his opponents are actually running against him with student loan forgiveness as part of their platform.