WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is facing increasing pressure from Democrats to extend a pandemic-related pause to student loan repayment, pitting the White House between its restless liberal base and a growing effort from the administration to signal that life is returning to normal after nearly two years of emergency measures.
Biden has twice given an extension. Unless he is persuaded to issue another extension, federal student loan repayments will resume after the president’s current order expires on Jan. 31.
Nationally, 45.7 million borrowers have $1.6 trillion of student loan debt, and 41 million of them have taken advantage of the pandemic pause on repayments, according to an Education Department spokesperson.
Progressives are leading the call for another extension as borrowers prepare to resume monthly payments early next year amid rising inflation and the threat of the new omicron variant. Average monthly payments are about $400, according to the Federal Reserve.
“We now have people who’ve never had to pay because they graduated into a pandemic in 2020,” said Melissa Byrne, a liberal activist. “You have people that are still struggling.”
Byrne on Wednesday led a protest outside the White House calling for both the extension of the payment freeze and an outright cancellation of at least some student debt, arranging for a small marching band and choir to perform.
“I have faith in the White House not to do something stupid,” she said.
The looming decision comes amid both a rise in liberal frustration with the president on issues such as voting rights and the public’s increasing intolerance for extraordinary measures enacted during the pandemic.
And unlike other measures before the president that require congressional approval, extending the student loan payment freeze is the sole purview of the executive branch.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this month that a “smooth transition back into repayment is a high priority for the administration,” setting off a backlash from activists who want Biden to pause repayments and cancel student debt.
Psaki this week said Biden would happily sign a bill to fulfill a campaign promise to cancel $10,000 in student debt if Congress passes one. “They haven’t sent him a bill on that yet,” she said.
DEMOCRATS URGE BIDEN TO EXTEND PAUSE
But Democratic lawmakers point out that in the meantime Biden does not need legislation to extend the pause on repayments, which he did in August following a standoff with his party’s progressive faction over the end to a national eviction moratorium. Progressives want Biden to issue another extension before the end of January.
“He can do it with the stroke of a pen and that’s what we’re asking for,” said Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., one of the most left-leaning lawmakers in Congress.
It’s not just progressive firebrands who say Biden should act.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., a mainstream Democrat and close ally of the president, also said the pause should be extended as the country still grapples with the pandemic.
“I certainly hope we can give it some more time,” said Casey, a three-term senator who shares Biden’s Scranton roots. “We’re still in a pandemic for all intents and purposes,” he added.
Republicans say while they are sympathetic to the plight of borrowers, the pause on repayments cannot continue indefinitely.
“The question really becomes at what point do you stop this or is this a permanent development?” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “I mean, someone has to explain what the end date is.”
Rubio said the pause was enacted during the initial shocks to the economy, but he argued that now there are more jobs than workers and an extension would be misguided. He said it would be better to pass legislation to reform the student loan system as a long-term solution and that his bill would eliminate interest on federal student loans by replacing it with a flat financing fee.
“I had $100,000 of student loans, so I sympathize with it,” Rubio said. But, he added, “at some point these have to be paid back.”
Extending an emergency measure like freezing student loan payments could alarm the public, Republicans say, which sees the country as emerging from an emergency situation. The share of Americans who report being “very concerned” about the virus had dropped from 45% in September to 30% this month, according to a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday.
Rep. Jake LaTurner, R-Kan., whose district includes the University of Kansas, said that another extension would be counterproductive. “It’s time for us to get back to some sense of normalcy,” LaTurner said.
BORROWERS BRACE FOR REPAYMENTS TO RESUME
For some borrowers the prospect of the resumption of monthly student loan payments presents its own crisis.
Sebastian Fernandez Giraldo, a Raleigh resident with $55,000 in student loan debt, compared waiting for repayments to return to “that flinch before somebody punches you.”
The 35-year-old who immigrated to the United States from Colombia as a child and holds a master’s degree in economics from North Carolina State University said he doubts he’ll be able to buy a home or have children because of his debts.
“I can’t plan on anything else in life other than work and eventually die, I guess,” said Fernandez Giraldo, who is an organizer for Unemployed Workers United, a progressive advocacy group.
When Biden issued the previous extension, he called the pause a “critical lifeline” and said it ensures that Americans “don’t have to choose between paying for basic necessities or their student loan during the pandemic that upended their lives.”
The Education Department spokesperson said in the coming weeks the agency “will engage directly with federal student loan borrowers to ensure they have the resources they need.”
The Debt Collective, a national group campaigning for an extension of the pause and the cancellation of debt, said Black women will be hardest hit when payments resume. Black women voted for Biden by the largest margin of any demographic group with 95%, according to the Pew Research Center.
A 2021 analysis by the American Association of University Women found that women take on more debt than men and that Black women have larger debts than other demographic groups with an average of more than $41,000 in undergraduate debt one year after graduation compared to nearly $34,000 for white women.
Richelle Brooks, a 34-year-old single mother with children ages 12 and 13, doesn’t think she’ll be able to pay back the $250,000 in student loan debt she accrued as a first-generation college student who earned a doctorate in education.
“When you grow up in poverty, they tell you how to get out of poverty and what is preached to Black and brown kids is to go to college,” said Brooks, a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of the Debt Collective. “We took the steps to go to college and there’s no payoff. I’m living paycheck to paycheck as a principal with a doctorate.”
Brooks, who voted for Biden, said his inaction on student debt has made her question her support for him. “Black women, we campaigned hard for the president and he turned his back on us,” Brooks said.
