After a set of legal setbacks for President Joe Biden's student loan repayment program, progressive groups are demanding another pause in loan payments. | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty ImagesPresident Joe Biden’s election-year plan to ratchet up relief for millions of student loan borrowers hit a major legal roadblock this week, leaving progressive groups scrambling to get the White House to take new, immediate action to stem the fallout.
“The good news for the president is that this overreach by these Republican attorneys general has given him a winning political hand,” said Mike Pierce, who leads the Student Borrower Protection Center, one of the advocacy groups that has pressured Biden on debt forgiveness for years. “He just needs to play it.”
The Justice Department has already filed appeals of the court rulings that blocked the repayment program, but administration officials are weighing additional actions. But many of the remaining 3.5 million borrowers were in line to have their monthly payments lowered starting in July, and those borrowers are now in limbo after the court ruling.
“There has to be some workarounds for the narrow slice of borrowers in that circumstance,” he said. “I can’t imagine that the department couldn’t give narrow groups of borrowers a forbearance.” The Biden administration for months has pushed its SAVE plan as a centerpiece of its “safety net” for borrowers struggling to afford monthly student loan payments.