Pressley on student loan aid decision: ‘We were unrelenting’

US Rep. Pressley

Earlier this month, US Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sen. Elizabeth Warren sat down at long table at the Boston Teachers Union headquarters in Dorchester with local union leaders as part of the long effort pressing for student loan debt cancellation.

Warren told the gathering that President Biden cares about labor, and that his labor chief, Dorchester’s Marty Walsh, supported student debt cancellation, even though he was not present for the discussion.

Fourteen days later, Biden announced that the US Department of Education will offer $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients who have loans with the department, and up to $10,000 for non-Pell recipients. Eligibility is limited to people with individual income of $125,000 or $250,000 for married couples.

Pressley was on the phone with Biden chief of staff Ron Klain at 7 a.m. that day, arguing for the proposal to be even more far-reaching. But she’ll take what was announced.

“I think student debt cancellation is good policy and good politics,” Pressley said. “Democrats win when we deliver, when people feel the impact of our policies and advocacy on their behalf.”

Biden’s action was the result of two years of advocacy, according to Pressley. “What tipped it is we didn’t give up,” she said. “We were unrelenting and we were malleable in using every tool available,” she added, noting that top unions, as well as NAACP, backed the move.

Pressley rejected the arguments that student debt cancellation will add to the country’s inflation woes, saying, “This is not a handout, it’s a hand-up.” She noted that she had defaulted on her college loans, saying she could not stay ahead of them despite working three jobs, adding that she paid off the loans decades later, just a few years before joining Congress in 2019.

As for the argument that the move doesn’t deal with skyrocketing college costs, Pressley said, “We never said this would fix that problem.”

Increased federal investments are still needed in Pell grants and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), as well as making community college tuition-free, according to Pressley, who represents Boston’s western half.

Pressley plans to use her seat on the House Oversight and Reform Committee to review how the student loan debt cancellation process plays out, and see if fixes need to be implemented. “We’ll learn that in real time,” she said.


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