President Joe Biden directed Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to compile a memo outlining his legal authority regarding student loan forgiveness.
Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, spoke of the memo, which includes an option to cancel up to $50,000, during a Politico event Thursday. He said Biden is hoping to see the report “in the next few weeks.”
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“He’ll look at that legal authority, he’ll look at the policy issues around that, and then he’ll make a decision,” Klain added. “He hasn’t made a decision on that either way. In fact, he hasn’t yet gotten the memos that he needs to start to focus on that decision.”
Biden has backed proposals that would cancel $10,000 per eligible person, but other Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, are pushing him to cancel $50,000.
At a town hall in February, Biden was asked by an audience member what he would do to help with student debt. “I am prepared to write off the $10,000 debt, but not [$50,000] because I don’t think I have the authority to do it,” he said.
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After the town hall, Warren and Schumer released a joint statement making the case that $10,000 in loan forgiveness doesn’t go far enough.
“Presidents Obama and Trump used their executive authority to cancel student loan debt. The Biden administration has said it is reviewing options for cancelling up to $50,000 in student debt by executive action, and we are confident they will agree with the standards Obama and Trump used as well as leading legal experts who have concluded that the administration has broad authority to immediately deliver much-needed relief to millions of Americans,” they said.
Some opponents of student debt forgiveness echo Biden’s stance that the proposal benefits those in higher-income brackets. A report from the Federal Reserve released in September 2020 found that the majority of student loan debt, roughly 60%, is held by the top 40% of income earners, who account for about three-quarters of all loan payments. The lowest-income earners hold less than 20% of all federal student loan debt by comparison.
