WACO, Texas — Roughly 48 million Americans have student loan debt.
For more than two years, payments have been paused, which was a welcome break for many of those borrowers.
That pause is now about to end — and all eyes are on the White House to see what's next. Then-candidate Joe Biden campaigned on the promise to forgive up to $10,000 in student loan debt, but a plan has yet to be revealed.
It's unclear exactly what the president is thinking, but Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has said an announcement is just days away.
"We've been talking daily about this and I can tell you American people will hear in the next week or so," Cardona said in a Meet The Press interview.
Americans currently owe roughly $1.75 trillion in student loans and studies show a $10,000 forgiveness would completely wipe out debt for about 15 million borrowers.
While that relief can be life changing for many people, others don't think this is a good idea.
On a 25 News Facebook poll, one Central Texan called the move "extremely unfair to taxpayers that have paid theirs off." Another woman said she had "worked very hard" to pay hers down and expects the same for everyone else.
There's also been concern this relief would only raise inflation further, but local economist Ray Perryman told 25 News that is not likely.
"This is a forgiveness that's mostly loans that were paid out over years," he said. "It's not like somebody is putting $10,000 in your pocket today and say you can go out and spend it. It's reducing your loan payments."
Perryman said the economy is on an upswing and he expects to see it continue to improve over the next few months.
"We've seen good strong job growth and people are facing headway with inflation which seems to be getting better in some key areas, but we still have some challenges there," he said. "In the whole I think the economy is likely to continue to grow for the foreseeable future."
The president has given himself a deadline of Aug. 31to make a decision. Student loan payments are expected to resume on Sept. 1.
