Biden Promises Answer On Student Loan Debt Soon
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President Joe Biden told reporters on Thursday he’s nearing a decision on student loan debt. (Photo: JIM WATSON via Getty Images)
President Joe Biden said Thursday that his administration is weeks away from making a decision on canceling student loan debt for millions of Americans but also signaled it was unlikely he would cancel as much debt as some progressives have hoped.
“I am considering dealing with some debt reduction. I am not considering $50,000 debt reduction,” Biden said in response to questions from reporters. “I’m in the process of taking a hard look at whether or not there will be additional debt forgiveness, and I’ll have an answer on that in the next couple of weeks.”
Biden has repeatedly extended a pandemic-era pause on federal student loan payments ― most recently until Aug. 1 ― and has already canceled roughly $17 billion worth of debt owed by 700,000 borrowers. During his presidential campaign, he endorsed legislation canceling $10,000 worth of student loan debt.
But his administration has long downplayed the chances of canceling student loan debt en masse via unilateral presidential action, refusing to say whether the administration believes it would be legal. And though some congressional Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have pushed for up to $50,000 in debt cancellation, Biden has previously said it was “unlikely” he would back such a significant amount of cancellation.
Administration sources said a final decision has not been made but noted that previous Biden administration relief efforts have been tied to income and that any student loan forgiveness would likely follow the same pattern.
It’s also possible, sources said, for some cancellation efforts to target only undergraduate debt or debt for people who did not ultimately graduate from college.
“He doesn’t believe millionaires and billionaires should benefit,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday afternoon when asked if student loan cancellation would be means-tested.
The NAACP, which has pushed for student debt cancellation as a way to close the racial wealth gap, quickly released a statement demanding Biden cancel all student loan debt.
“We agree that we shouldn’t cancel $50,000 in student loan debt. We should cancel all of it. $50,000 was just the bottom line,” said Wisdom Cole, the national director of the group’s youth and college division. “For the Black community, who’ve accumulated debt over generations of oppression, anything less is unacceptable.”
About 40 million Americans hold a total of $1.7 trillion in student loan debt.
Progressives have argued canceling student loan debt could help Biden’s relatively poor standing with younger voters, who have soured on his performance and appear unenthusiastic about voting in November’s midterm elections.
“President Biden can’t afford to miss the layup on student loans,” said the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group that often allies itself with Warren. “Biden’s approval rating with young voters can improve from its current 21% if the president delivers on his campaign promise to cancel a significant amount of student debt. Fox News and MAGA Republicans will attack no matter what, so the only variable is whether the president maximizes the upside by truly inspiring a key part of the Democratic coalition.”
Republicans, meanwhile, have already begun attacking possible cancellation as a fiscally irresponsible giveaway. Five Republican senators introduced a bill earlier this week to block Biden from forgiving student loans, though the legislation is unlikely to go anywhere in a Democrat-controlled chamber.
“Dems consider forgiving trillions in student loans,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) tweeted. “Other bribe suggestions: Forgive auto loans? Forgive credit card debt? Forgive mortgages? And put a wealth tax on the super-rich to pay for it all. What could possibly go wrong?”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
