Biden Keeps Making Excuses on Student Debt Relief
![Students hold up signs at a protest for lower tuition at Hunter College in Manhattan, Nov. 12, 2015 [REUTERS/Carlo Allegri]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f21dbb91adde3260d4ba1ef/1613688859113-LFHCL2O82B6HDMDHN70C/student-debt-protest.jpg)
Students hold up signs at a protest for lower tuition at Hunter College in Manhattan, Nov. 12, 2015 [Reuters/Carlo Allegri]
The clock is ticking on President Joe Biden’s student loan moratorium. Come October, indebted people will have to start paying them back again. Many hoped that before that happened, their student loans would be forgiven.
Speaking at a town hall on Tuesday, Biden dismissed the idea of relieving student loan borrowers of $50,000 through executive action. His reasoning? He doesn’t want to forgive the debt of people who went to universities such as “Harvard and Yale and Penn,” and prefers Congress cancel $10,000 of borrowers’ student loans through legislation.
Congress actually has a $50,000 forgiveness plan supported by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). It has the potential to free 36 million people from student loan debt (they probably didn’t all go to Harvard), with women and people of color being the plan’s greatest beneficiaries. According to CNBC, white people with education debt owe around $30,000 on average, while Black Americans owe around $36,000, with women in both categories owing the most. Though Democrats have control of both chambers of Congress, they already face pushback from within their party.
Despite Biden’s protestations, he might have the executive power to make student debt relief possible while Congress is gridlocked. But he appears to have found a more convenient route: washing his hands of the controversial issue at the expense of several million indebted Americans.