Student Loan Debt Crisis: Lawmakers, Groups Call On Biden To Extend Pause On Borrowers' Payments

President Joe Biden faces renewed pressure to extend the freeze on student loan payments.

On Wednesday, the nonprofit Student Borrow Protection Center sent a letter to the White House to urge it to extend the postponement on student loan payments before it lapses on Jan. 31, 2022. It was joined by a coalition of 207 organizations that include the American Federation of Teachers and the NAACP.

“We, the undersigned 207 organizations, write to urge you to put a stop to this crisis in the making before it begins and extend the current pause on student loan payments,” the letter read. “The student loan payment pause has been one of the most important investments the federal government has made in Americans' financial lives in a generation.”

The letter implored Biden to keep his "promise" to "reform the student loan system to ensure that student loan payments would be affordable for all." They praised his decision to twice postpone renewed payments by borrowers, but they cautioned that the COVID-19 pandemic was not quite over and that the economic recovery remained even further away from completion.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has pressured the administration to do more to help student borrowers.

Schumer has warned that those unable to make payments will be crushed beneath the weight of compounded interest on their loans. The arrival of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was another factor that fueled uncertainty going forward, according to Schumer.

“If we don’t extend the pause on payments, then that horrendous interest will pile up at a time when too many are still not financially prepared to shoulder a giant monthly bill. Moreover, with Omicron spreading, the uncertainty with what happens next demands at least one more extension of the student loan payment pause," said Schumer.

Democratic politicians and activists have been calling on Biden to do more to address the student debt crisis as he promised during his campaign for the presidency. In July, Schumer, together with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., requested that Biden do more to alleviate the $1.7 trillion in student debt that burdens millions of Americans by forgiving $50,000 of a borrower's debt.

Biden has declined to do so.

The administration has instead forgiven the debts of those who were victims of scam private colleges and he would consider debt relief for attendees of historically black colleges and universities.

Americans have made clear that they do not feel ready to resume their loan repayments. A survey of 33,703 student loan borrowers by the Student Debt Crisis Center found that 89% of borrowers with full-time employment reported that they were not financially secure enough to begin making payments if they renew in February.

The student loan debt crisis affects over 43 million Americans, according to the Education Data Initiative's figures from July.