Emma Joy, thank you. As we mentioned,
reaction pouring in from all corners of Washington,
from the White House to Capitol Hill.
Let's go to the White House right now.
President Biden addressing reporters.
Hello folks.
Here you go, Miss Secretary,
let me begin by saying I know there are millions
of Americans,
millions of Americans this country who?
Feel disappointed and discouraged or even a little bit angry
about the course decision today on student debt,
And I must admit, I do too.
Before I tell you the steps we're going to take
and want to talk about,
we'll be enabled, I want to talk about what we've
been able to achieve so far
on student loan over the past few years.
First, we made the largest increase in penal grants in
over a decade,
helping students from families who nearly all make less than
$60,000 a year. Then we fixed the socalled with the
help of the department
Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
So the borrowers who got into public service such as
school teachers,
police officers, social workers, service members,
you know, they they actually got the debt relief they
enter entitled under the law
before I came to office.
Only 7000 people have benefited from that program.
Today, over 600,000 borrowers have received relief from that program
and it's still available. So many people more,
so many more people can be helped.
And I encouraged you to apply if you haven't already.
You're still eligible. Go to
studentaid.gov it matters. Third, my administration approved a program from
the Obama Biden administration
on Income driven repayment plan.
That's what it was referred to as
back then. We set a limit.
Student borrowers would pay no more than 10%
of their disposable income to pay back their debt in
any one month time.
My administration is going to reduce that to
5%. It's now the most generous repayment program ever.
No one with an undergraduate loan today or in the
future,
whether from a Community College or a four year college,
will have to pay more than
5% of disposable income to repay their loan.
And that's income. After you pay for the necessities like
housing and food and the like,
typical bar is going to save about
$1000 a year, and if you keep up payments for
20 years without missing them,
your total debt is forgiven after 20 years.
That's what the program was before,
but we were just reduced to 5%.
In addition to that, last year I announced my Student
Debt Relief Plan,
the plan that was on the verge of providing more
than 40 million Americans with real debt relief.
Up to $10,000 for many borrowers and up to 20,000
for those who have gotten a Pell Grant.
Nearly 90% of their relief have gone to borrowers,
90% of it making less than
$75,000 a year. And no one,
no one making over 125,000 would qualify.
This program was all set to begin.
The website had been set up,
the applications had been simplified so that it took less
than 5 minutes to complete.
Notice had been sent out
to people about the relief they were eligible for.
16 million people, 16 million people had already been approved.
The money was literally about to go out the door.
And then Republican elected officials and special interests stepped in.
They said no, no, literally snatching from the hands of
millions of Americans thousands of dollars in student debt relief
that was about to change their lives.
You know, these Republican officials.
Just couldn't bear the thought of providing relief for workingclass
middleclass Americans.
Republican state officials sued my administration
attempting to block relief, including millions of their own constituents.
Republicans in Congress voted to overturn the plan.
I think everyone, I don't think I had any Republican
votes for this plan.
At the same time, think about this.
We all supported the paycheck protection program.
Remember PPP, you know, which was designed to help business
owners who lost money because of the pandemic.
Was a worthy program. But let's be clear,
some of the same elected Republicans,
members of Congress who strongly opposed giving release to students,
got hundreds of thousands of dollars themselves and really members
of Congress,
because of the businesses they were able to keep open.
Several members of Congress got over
$1,000,000. All those loans were forgiven.
You know how much that program cost?
700. And $60 billion.
My program's too expensive,
$360 billion more than I proposed.
In my student debt relief program,
I was trying to provide students with 10 to
20,010 to $20,000 relief. By comparison,
the average amount forgiven in the PPP for the
Pandemic Loan Program average amount forgiven was
$70,000.
Our kid making
60,000 bucks.
Trying to pay back his bills?
Asking for $10,000 of relief?
Come on, the hypocrisy is stunning.
You can't help a family making 75 grand a year,
but you can help a millionaire and you have your
debt forgiven.
My plan would not only have life and life changed
for most of Americans would have been good for the
American economy.
Free millions of Americans with a crushing burden of student
debt.
More homes would have bought,
More businesses would have been started.
More couples would have had the competence to start a
family.
Millions of people would have felt they could get on
with their lives.
These Republicans blocked all that.
Now, in addition to the hypocrisy,
some of these Republicans comics are shamelessly pushing
to advance the bill in the coming weeks that gives
hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks and handouts
to the wealthiest Americans,
They still haven't given up a making permanent.
A $2 trillion tax cut that they never paid for,
never paid for $2 trillion.
So let me be clear,
Republicans in Congress, it's not about reducing the deficit.
It's not about fairness and forgiving loans.
It's only about forgiving loans they have to pay.
Today, the Supreme Court sided with them.
I believe the court's decision to strike down my student
debt relief program as a mistake was wrong.
I'm not going to stop fighting to deliver borrowers.
What they need particularly those at the bottom end of
the economic scale.
So we need to find a new way,
and we're moving as fast as we can.
First, I'm announcing today a new path consistent with the
day's ruling,
to provide student debt relief to as many bars as
possible as quickly as possible.
We will ground this new approach in a different law
than my original plan,
the socalled Higher Education Act.
That that will allow Secretary Cardona,
who's with me today, to compromise,
waive or release loans under certain circumstances.
This new path is legally sound.
It's going to take longer,
but in my view it's the best path to be
managed to providing for many bars possible with debt relief.
I've directed my team to move as quickly as possible
under the law.
Just moments ago, Secretary Cardona took the first step to
initially that to initiate that new approach.
We're not going to waste any time on this.
We're getting moving on every.
It's going to take longer,
but we're getting at it right away.
Second, we know what many borrowers will need to make
their hard choices which their which their budgets are being
strained now when they start to repay their monthly loan
payments this fall. You know,
we know that figuring out how to pay these ad
expenses can take time for borrowers and they might miss
payments at the front end
as they get back into repayment.
Normally this could lead bars to fall into delinquency and
default,
but without their financial, it would hurt their financial security
and that's not good for them or the economy.
That's why we're creating a temporary 12 month
what we're calling on ramp repayment program
and now it's about the same as a student loan
pause.
It's been in effect for the past three years.
Monthly payments will be due,
bills will not go out and interest will be accruing.
And during this period, if you can pay your monthly
bills,
you should. But if you cannot,
if you miss payments, this on RAMP temporarily remove the
threat of default or having your credit harm which can
hurt borrowers for years to come.
Because the Department of Education won't refer borrowers.
And the reason why that work,
they won't refer borrowers who miss payments to credit agencies
for 12 months to give them a chance to get
back up and running.
Let me close with this
a Republican. Officials say student loan relief is a giveaway
to the privileged.
You hear that loud now,
the privileged.
I love their concern for the privilege,
but I know who student loan borrowers are in this
country.
So do all you and
the couple putting off having a child
until they can find their way to deal with their
debt.
That's who they are. They're young,
put putting off buying their first home.
So they get out from under student loans.
Hope on the horizon, Thanks to relief that I planned
last year.
Today's court decision statutes away from them.
I get it. I get it.
I hear this.
It's, it's and and I'm concerned about.
But today's decision has closed one path.
Now we're going to pursue another.
I'm never going to stop fighting for you.
We'll use every tool at our disposal to get you
the student debt relief you need and reach your dreams.
It's good for the economy.
It's good for the country.
It's going to be good for you.
Thank you very, very much for listening.
We're going to get this done,
God willing. Thank you.