President Joe Biden has paused student loan payments for over two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but canceling or mitigating student loan debt will be politically complicated for both borrowers and providers.

The administration has been saying that payments will restart on May 1. On the campaign trail, Biden promised to cancel $10,000 per borrower but has faced increasing calls to cancel the debt entirely or increase the amount of forgiveness. Some federal student loan providers have also ended their relationships with the government, according to CNBC.

On the podcast “Pod Save America,” chief of staff Ron Klain said that the administration was still open to forgiving student loan debt, which currently sits above $1 trillion. It is not clear when or if that policy would be announced, and the administration may favor just pushing back payments for the time being.

If Biden were to restart payments, borrowers may go on strike and simply refuse to pay. A Student Borrower Protection Center poll published on Feb. 28 found that a majority of likely voters support either partial or total forgiveness of student loan debt.

Politically, Republicans have pushed back against forgiving all student loan debt, and not all Democrats are in favor of doing so either. Wide-scale student loan forgiveness is not popular among politicians, but a more targeted approach, such as forgiving debt for those who fall within a certain income bracket or canceling debt for teachers, is, according to Forbes.

Biden could bypass Congress, but the legislation would take longer to be implemented because of the legal challenges that would come up. So, it looks like the administration could end up extending student loan forgiveness beyond May until it can figure out how to gain more support for total or more significant debt elimination.

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