The Biden administration says they will restart federal student loan payments on May 1, 2022. However, a new CNBC poll finds less than a third of Americans believe them. Officials at the U.S. Department of Education had promised last summer that payments would restart February 1, 2022. Education policy expert Rick Hess, with the American Enterprise Institute, says kicking the can down the road is not a good idea.
“The idea that anybody who has borrowed money has just been told ‘Hey, don’t pay us back. We’re going to give you credit for payments you’re not making,’” Hess said. “To have this running close to two years, including well after vaccines, just starts to seem irresponsible.”
He adds there are other negative effects of the Biden administration crying wolf.
“What it might do is it might make people less likely to go to community college and more likely to go to expensive, fancy brand colleges because they might figure that they’re not going to be asked to have to pay the money back,” Hess explained.
About 41 million Americans still have a balance owed on their federal student loans.