President Joe Biden said Thursday that he's “taking a hard look” at canceling additional federal student loan debt and will reach a decision within a month.
“I am considering dealing with some debt reduction,” Biden told reporters in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.
The comments came days after Biden had a private meeting with Democratic lawmakers who pressed him on the issue. One of the lawmakers, Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., said afterwards that Biden disclosed he was exploring the possibility.
However, Biden signaled in his Thursday remarks that he wouldn't go as far as some activists want, saying $50,000 in debt forgiveness was not under consideration. He did not give a number for what he was considering.
“I'm in the process of taking a hard look at whether or not there will be additional debt forgiveness,” he said. "And I’ll have an answer on that in the next couple of weeks.”
During his campaign, Biden said he wanted to “immediately cancel” at least $10,000 in student debt per person. So far he's repeatedly extended a pause on requiring borrowers to repay their loans, a moratorium that was put in place under then-President Donald Trump near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although activists have been encouraged by their increasing traction on this issue, some said they were concerned that Biden wouldn't go far enough.
“President Biden, we agree that we shouldn’t cancel $50,000 in student loan debt. We should cancel all of it,” said Wisdom Cole, national director of the NAACP Youth & College Division. “$50,000 was just the bottom line.”
Activists protesting corporate profits, environmental abuses, poor working conditions and the Israel-Hamas war marched in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, united in their opposition to a global trade summit that will draw President Joe Biden and leaders from nearly two dozen countries.
U.S. officials say that five U.S. servicepeople were killed when a military helicopter crashed over the eastern Mediterranean Sea during a training mission.
FBI agents seized phones and an iPad from New York City Mayor Eric Adams this week as part of an investigation into his campaign fundraising, his attorney confirmed Friday.
A man was arrested early Friday in the alleged assault of former U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, who says she was molested as she jogged along the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Wednesday in California for talks on trade, Taiwan and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations in the first engagement between the leaders of the world's two biggest economies in a year.
a phrase about the space in between, “from the river to the sea,” has become a battle cry with new power to roil Jews and pro-Palestinian activists in the aftermath of Hamas' deadly rampage across southern Israel Oct. 7 and Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced Thursday that he won’t seek reelection in 2024, giving Republicans a prime opportunity to pick up a seat in the heavily GOP state.
