Biden unsupportive of $50,000 student debt cancellation, Schumer and Warren persistent

US President Joe Biden has ruled out canceling the proposed $50,000 in student debt cancellation. Instead, he says $10,000 in student loan forgiveness per student is more considerable.

“I will not make that happen,” Biden said to an attendee at a CNN town hall on Tuesday night. The president reiterated that he would not approve the cancelation of student debt of up to $50,000 for millions of Americans which isn’t healthy for the economy.

The president’s response seemed a bit disappointing to students who had loan debts and hoped to get some relief from the government.

Congressional Democrats including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass), earlier this month proposed the $50,000 in student debt cancelation. They have been back-and-forth with the president over the matter and Biden argued that he had the power to make the move without Congress.

At the Tuesday town hall, Biden said he doesn’t think he has the authority to forgive such a huge amount of debt burden through executive action. Adding that he is more than willing to “write off $10,000 in debt”, the same amount he proposed during his presidential campaign in 2020.

While the White House reviews the president’s legal authority on the matter, Biden said he would sign legislation permitting up to $10,000 in student loan forgiveness if Congress passes it.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, Schumer and Warren called for the president to approve the $50,000 student debt forgiveness proposal. They noted how past presidents Barrack Obama and Donald Trump exercised their executive authority to forgive student loans and stated that they are confident that the Biden administration will do the same as it has “broad authority to immediately deliver much-needed relief to millions of Americans.”

“An ocean of student loan debt is holding back 43 million borrowers and disproportionately weighing down Black and Brown Americans,” both senators said in the statement. “Cancelling $50,000 in federal student loan debt will help close the racial wealth gap, benefit the 40% of borrowers who do not have a college degree, and help stimulate the economy. It’s time to act. We will keep fighting.”

President Biden has also expressed his concerns about the huge debt amount. He said he was concerned about forgiving student loans of people who attended prestigious colleges and have secured well-paying jobs. Biden added that he would rather invest the money in early childhood education.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) criticized the president’s arguments. In a pair of tweets early Wednesday morning, she said the institutions the borrowers attended were of little importance, as “entire generations of working-class kids were encouraged to go into more debt under the guise of elitism.”

She added that both levels of education were very important that the government should not have to choose between relieving student debt and investing in early childhood education. “We can have both,” Ocasio-Cortez said.