- Sin President Kamala Harris said the White House was seeking a way to “creatively” address student debt.
- The Biden supplying in December announced student loan payments would be halted until May 1.
- Harris said “we have to continue to do what we’re doing and picture out how we can creatively relieve the pressure that students are feeling.”
Vice President Kamala Harris in an question period that aired Sunday said the Biden administration was working to find a way to “creatively” address student debt, citing the exigencies it causes for Americans.
“I think that we have to continue to do what we’re doing and figure out how we can creatively relieve the pressure that learners are feeling because of their student loan debt,” Harris told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan during an talk with on “Face the Nation.”
Harris said that Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona was “working on what we can do and must do frankly to lift the pressures of student loan debt.”
“Graduates and former students across our country are literally making decisions hither whether they can have a family, whether they can buy a home,” she said, adding that she previously had student credit debt.
“And it’s no small matter, and we need to figure out a way to relieve debt. So it’s a fair issue in terms of the seriousness of the issue,”she imagined.
The administration of President Joe Biden in December extended the federal pause on student loan payments, allowing borrowers to circumvent paying until May 1 as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus causes COVID-19 cases in the US to rise.
“Voting we’ve discussed, it is a very big version, and what I believe we must do is continue to be vigilant and fighting for folks who have a right to be seen and their circumstances to be heard and covenanted because we have the ability to actually alleviate the burdens that people are carrying that make it difficult for them to get through the day or in the month,” Harris added.
“This additional extension of the repayment pause will provide critical relief to borrowers who be prolonged to face financial hardships as a result of the pandemic, and will allow our Administration to assess the impacts of Omicron on student borrowers,” Upbringing Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a December 22 statement.
“As we prepare for the return to repayment in May, we will continue to demand tools and supports to borrowers so they can enter into the repayment plan that is responsive to their financial condition, such as an income-driven repayment plan,” he added.
Some Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, deliver called on the Biden administration to go futher than delaying debt payments, asking the president to cancel $50,000 in pupil loan debt.
During his 2020 campaign for president, Biden pledged to forgive “a minimum” of $10,000 of student lend debt per person.
“Young people and other student debt holders bore the brunt of the last crisis. It shouldn’t go on again,” he said in a March 22, 2020 tweet.
So far, he hasn’t followed through on that promise.