Thank you,

Too many borrowers, parents, and students have yet to recover from the financial harm caused by the pandemic. We still depend on the payment pause to put food on the table, afford healthcare, and support our families through this challenging time. Ending the national emergency could put this much-needed relief at risk.

We urge you to keep payments paused until student debt is actually cancelled.

As borrowers wait for the Department of Education to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt, Americans should not be subjected to repayment on loans they are set to have canceled. To protect borrowers, the President must extend the student loan payment pause until debts are canceled.

Millions of borrowers, who were depending on the President’s student debt cancellation plan, are facing uncertainty due to recent legal challenges. Without debt cancellation, borrowers are left shouldering the persistent harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, skyrocketing inflation, and an unclear financial future.

Restarting student loan payments is simply not affordable for millions of Americans recovering from the pandemic or spending more on food, housing, healthcare, and everyday necessities. Federal student loan payments must not resume during this critical time – and the pause should continue until the President’s student debt cancellation plan is secured

Further, we call on the President to include all federal student loan borrowers in this relief. For too long, commercially-held Family Federal Education Loans (FFELP) and other types of federal loans have been excluded from pandemic-related relief. That means that millions of people had to make payments even when the economy was halted and the pandemic health emergency was at its worst.