Michigan Attorney General's Office
Attorney General Dana Nessel.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is calling on President Joe Biden to fully cancel federal student debt owed by every borrower in the country.
Nessel joined a coalition of eight attorneys general urging Biden to exercise his authority under the Higher Education Act to cancel all federal student loan debt.
“Hardships created by the pandemic — and the subsequent hold on loan payments — prove we are equipped to cancel student debt once and for all,” Nessel said in a statement Thursday. “I stand with my colleagues in asking President Biden to bring this much-needed relief to millions of borrowers across the country.”
The total federal student loan debt has reached more than $1.7 trillion, with millions of students stuck with unmanageable debts as inflation continues to climb.
“The sheer enormity of debts owed, a systemically flawed repayment and forgiveness system, and the disproportionate impact of the debt burden all speak to the enormity of the challenge facing countless borrowers,” the attorneys general said in a letter to Biden. Biden recently extended the moratorium on federal student loan payments through Aug. 31.
The attorneys general argue that the moratorium is not enough.
“Restarting federal student loan payments, rather than permanently forgiving them, will only make matters worse,” they wrote. “Already borrowers have collectively received hundreds of millions of emails alerting them to approaching deadlines for resumption of repayment, only to see those deadlines extended—sometimes at the very last moment.”
The other attorneys general who signed the letter are in New York, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Washington.
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