Biden's Inaction On Student Loans Could Haunt Democrats In 2022

President Joe Biden is facing pressure to make good on his campaign promise of forgiving $10,000 in student loans as the national moratorium on student loan payments is set to expire in February.

The moratorium on student loans was first enacted by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 and has been extended repeatedly by both administrations. Biden last extended the moratorium over the summer through Jan. 31, 2022, and described the move as the “final extension.”

The president has previously forgiven more than $11.5 billion in student loans for up to 580,000 student loan borrowers who were either disabled or victims of scam colleges like ITT Technical Insitute.

Biden possesses the executive authority to abolish all student loans under the Higher Education Act of 1965. This would give the Secretary of Education the authority to “enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.”

The amount of student loan debt is $1.7 trillion as those in their 20s and 30s have been forced to live with their parents and postpone lifetime milestones like moving out, buying a home, getting married and starting a family.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have urged Biden to use his authority to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt. Warren says doing so would eliminate all student debt for 84% of borrowers, including more than 3 million people who have been paying their loans back for the past 20 years.

There is also a staggering racial gap in the student loan crisis as Black students owe an average of $7,400 more than white students, according to the Brookings Institution, which more than triples to $25,000 over four years.

“This is the single most effective executive action President Biden could take to jump-start our economy and begin to narrow the racial wealth gap," Warren previously told Business Insider.

Now that the moratorium is expiring, Warren says forcing students to pay back their student loans “is going to be a hard blow to people who have struggled throughout this pandemic. It's the wrong move,” Warren said.

Young voters were crucial to Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election as 61% of voters ages 18 to 29 voted for him compared to just 36% who voted for Trump. If Biden fails to keep his promise, young voters may not turn out to the polls for Democrats in the midterms.

As a senator, Biden had supported a bill that stripped student loans from bankruptcy protections in 2005 that tripled the amount of student debt over a decade.