We called on President Joe Biden and his administration to cancel all student loan debt within the first 100 days of his presidency by way of executive action. Instead, President Biden failed to make good on this campaign promise and chose to allow tens of millions of Americans to continue to suffer under the burden of their student loans.

Americans are still reeling from this once in a century global pandemic. Lost jobs, wages, and healthcare coverage were merely new economic hurdles for the tens of millions of student loan borrowers to navigate after already facing our nation’s deeply broken healthcare system and exploitative higher education financial system.
For us the U.S. economy and institutions have always been exploitative, COVID-19 just made them worse and showed everyone else how bad they were.

There exists an executive order pausing all payments on federally held student loans through August 31, 2022. Through a separate executive order, President Biden could invoke the exact same authority to cancel federally held student loan debt.

The current pause in student loan payments has provided tens of millions of Americans with much needed relief during the pandemic. A pandemic which is seeing a resurgence with the rise of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus and an economy that has yet to fully recover.

Combined, these factors mean that students will continue to suffer from the COVID-19 pandemic making it imperative that President Biden extend the payment pause at least until he makes good on his campaign promise of student debt cancellation.

We call on President Biden to extend the current pause on federal student loan payments until student loan debt is finally cancelled. 45 million Americans hold a total of $1.6 trillion in student loans. The cancellation of this debt will provide relief to working people at their greatest hour of need. Borrowers freed of their monthly payments, the average of which is more than $400, will have newfound purchasing power to provide their families with the necessities they depend on and stimulate our struggling local economies.

Presidents DO have the legal authority to cancel student debt based on powers outlined in the Higher Education Act. Furthermore, Joe Biden campaigned on student debt cancellation. Now is the time to follow through on this promise.

Signed by the fellow Zero Debt Massachusetts activists in solidarity with our allies in the movement to cancel student debt nationwide.

In Solidarity,