Will Biden Again Pause—Or Cancel—Your Student Loans? Here’s What We Know.

Topline

Millions of Americans with federal student loan debt are set to resume payments on May 1, after President Joe Biden has paused payments throughout the pandemic—but recent signals from the U.S. Department of Education and Biden’s chief of staff suggest the White House may soon extend the moratorium once again.

President Joe Biden speaks at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference on March 11 in … [+] Philadelphia.

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Key Facts

The Education Department recently instructed federal student loan servicers not to inform borrowers that payments will resume on May 1, according to an email first reported by Politico and confirmed by other outlets.

The email did not say the pause would be extended, but NPR notes loan servicers are legally required to send at least six notices before payment resumes—not leaving the agency much time before May 1.

When asked whether Biden would cancel some student loan debt, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said on the podcast Pod Save America in early March the president will “look at what we should do on student debt before the pause expires, or he’ll extend the pause.”

Klain suggested resuming payments may not be imminent, saying, “Right now, people aren’t having to pay on their loans” and the issue of canceling student debt is “something we’re going to deal with later on.”

The Education Department has not yet responded to a request for comment, but a spokesperson told NPR the Biden administration is “committed to providing meaningful relief” and the agency will “continue communicating directly with borrowers … [with]

clear and timely updates.”

Big Number

41 million. That’s the number of Americans affected by the pause on student loan payments, according to the White House. A slightly higher 43.4 million Americans have outstanding federal loans in total, the Department of Education reports, as not all are eligible for the moratorium. As of the fourth quarter of 2021, federal student loan borrowers owed a total of $1.6 trillion in outstanding loans, according to the Education Department.

What We Don’t Know

Whether Biden will cancel any student loans, rather than just delaying payments on them. The president promised on the campaign trail to forgive $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower but has yet to do so, and is now facing an increasing amount of pressure from the left to follow through on his promise or go even further. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted March 4 in response to Klain’s comments that “today would be a great day for President Biden and Vice President Harris to #CancelStudentDebt,” and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on MSNBC Sunday night she “think[s] this is the moment to do it” and called for the president to cancel $50,000 in debt per person.

Chief Critics

A number of Americans, particularly Republicans, are opposed to the moratorium on student loan payments being extended, given that unemployment rates have declined as the economy reopens following pandemic-era closures. A coalition of organizations led by Americans for Tax Reform urged Biden to resume the payments in a March 8 letter, calling the moratorium “fundamentally unfair” to those who don’t have loans or “who proactively paid off their debt” and arguing it’s too costly to the federal government to keep in place.

Key Background

Federal student loan debt has become a significant political issue on the left as outstanding payments continue to hamstring millions of Americans’ finances, and Biden’s promise to cancel $10,000 per person didn’t go as far as proposals from Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to largely abolish federal student debts. The moratorium on federal student loan payments was first imposed at the start of the pandemic in early 2020 through Congress’ CARES Act for coronavirus relief and has more recently been extended through a series of executive orders.