Biden seems ‘more open’ to canceling student debt broadly ‘than ever before,’ Chuck Schumer says

• Sen. Chuck Schumer said he is “making progress” with Biden on broad student-loan relief.
• “The White House seems more open to it than ever before,” he said during a virtual summit.
• The White House recently said Biden “has not ruled out” executive action for debt cancellation.

The Senate Majority Leader seems optimistic that broad student-loan relief is in the future for millions of federal borrowers.

During a virtual summit hosted by the Student Debt Crisis Center on Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer — a leading advocate for broad student-loan forgiveness in Congress — reiterated his belief that President Joe Biden can easily wipe out federal student loans by signing an executive order. He also noted that, following Biden’s fourth extension of the pause on student-loan payments, broad student-debt cancellation must be the next step, and said the White House might be looking favorably on the idea.

“Make no mistake about it: this pause isn’t going to stay forever, and the canceling of student debt is the way to go,” Schumer said. 

“We’re working on it,” Schumer added. “We’re making progress, folks. We are making progress. The White House seems more open to it than ever before.”

Following the extension of the student-loan payment pause, with waived interest, through August 31 last week, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers expressed their grievances with the additional temporary relief. The GOP argued further relief was not warranted and said it would hurt taxpayers and the economy, while Democrats said an extra four months was not enough — the pause needed to be extended through at least next year to fix flaws in the student-loan industry and allow time for debt cancellation.

Lawmakers have made their opinions of student-loan relief clear, but Biden himself has not. He pledged during his campaign to approve $10,000 in student-loan forgiveness, but since then, he has been silent on the issue, despite implementing targeted relief to certain groups of borrowers, like those defrauded by for-profit schools.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on numerous occasions that if Congress sends Biden a bill to forgive debt, he would be happy to sign it, but Schumer shut that idea down last year, saying legislation on student debt would not succeed in today’s partisan Congress. More recently, though, Psaki told reporters that Biden “has not ruled out” canceling student debt broadly, but she later told Fox News she suspects borrowers will have to make payments “at some time” under Biden, potentially ruling out complete forgiveness.

Still, Democratic lawmakers maintain they want some form of permanent relief. Nearly 100 of them recently called on Biden to cancel “a meaningful amount” of student debt, and while many of them have targeted $50,000 in forgiveness as a good starting point, Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Pramila Jayapal recently said the goal right now is for Biden to “make progress” on the issue. 

That doesn’t mean they’re not advocating for complete student loan relief. 

“We want our young people to realize that they can have a good future,” Schumer said. “One of the best ways to do it is by canceling student debt, by getting rid of the $50,000, even going higher after that.”