Student debt row: Joe Biden blames Republicans

Supporters of student debt forgiveness outside Supreme Court

President Joe Biden vowed to push ahead with a new plan to provide student loan relief for millions of borrowers while blaming Republican "hypocrisy" for triggering the day's Supreme Court decision that wiped out his original plan.

Biden said payment requirements for student loans would resume in coming weeks, but that he would work under the authority of the Higher Education Act. Hours after the Supreme Court ruling, Biden commented from the White House, trying to stay on the political offensive. Biden raised his voice at the end when a reporter asked if he had given borrowers false hope.

"I didn't give any false hope," he said heatedly. "The Republicans snatched away the hope that they were given." Top administration officials said they had met for weeks to discuss how to handle the Supreme Court's expected reversal of Biden's original plan.

Trying to place the onus for ending the plan on the GOP could allow Biden's re-election campaign to keep the issue of students loans as one of strength in the short term. But that may ultimately offer little solace to 43 million Americans who will now could have to start again repaying their student loans.

A May poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 43 per cent of US adults approve of how Biden sought to handle student debt, similar to his approval rating overall of 40 per cent in the same poll.

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