A res­olute, deter­mined Pres­i­dent Joe Biden made a joint appear­ance with Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Miguel Car­dona this after­noon at the White House to announce that the admin­is­tra­tion isn’t giv­ing up on stu­dent loan for­give­ness in the wake of the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Biden v. Nebras­ka, which struck down the admin­is­tra­tion’s orig­i­nal stu­dent loan for­give­ness plan adopt­ed just last year.

“I’m not going to stop fight­ing to deliv­er bor­row­ers what they need, par­tic­u­lar­ly those at the bot­tom end of the eco­nom­ic scale,” said the President.

“So, we need to find a new way. And we’re mov­ing as fast as we can.”

“First, I’m announc­ing today a new path con­sis­tent with today’s rul­ing to pro­vide stu­dent debt relief to as many bor­row­ers as pos­si­ble as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. We will ground this new approach in a dif­fer­ent law than my orig­i­nal plan, the so-called High­er Edu­ca­tion Act. That — that will allow Sec­re­tary Car­dona, who is with me today, to com­pro­mise, waive, or release loans under cer­tain circumstances.”

“This new path is legal­ly sound. It’s going to take longer, but, in my view, it’s the best path that remains to pro­vid­ing for as many bor­row­ers as pos­si­ble with debt relief. I’ve direct­ed my team to move as quick­ly as pos­si­ble under the law. Just moments ago, Sec­re­tary Car­dona took the first step to ini­tial­ly that — to ini­ti­ate that new approach. We’re not going to waste any time on this. We’re get­ting mov­ing on it.  It’s going to take longer, but we’re get­ting at it right away.”

“Fight­ing for the mid­dle-class and hard­work­ing Amer­i­cans has been a cor­ner­stone of Pres­i­dent Biden’s first term as pres­i­dent,” said Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee Chair Jaime Har­ri­son. “Since his first day in office, Pres­i­dent Biden has been com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that gov­ern­ment deliv­ers for work­ing fam­i­lies. Despite today’s rul­ing, Democ­rats remain more com­mit­ted than ever to fight­ing for the hard­work­ing Amer­i­cans that are the back­bone of our country.”

Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren, who had called on the admin­is­tra­tion to exer­cise its HEA author­i­ty, applaud­ed the move, tweet­ing: “Pres­i­dent Biden is right to fight back on behalf of work­ing peo­ple in need of stu­dent debt can­cel­la­tion. The law is on his side. The Pres­i­dent has the clear legal author­i­ty to can­cel stu­dent debt under the High­er Edu­ca­tion Act. In a democ­ra­cy, we have the final say.”

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez had made a sim­i­lar appeal ear­li­er in the day, point­ing out: “Just last year, DOE for­gave $6 BILLION for defraud­ed stu­dents. Trump com­plete­ly wiped out debt for dis­abled vet­er­ans. Nei­ther pro­gram was chal­lenged nor over­turned. We still have the pow­er to can­cel and must use it, or we’re look­ing at an eco­nom­ic cri­sis for mil­lions of people.”

The Debt Col­lec­tive was less enthu­si­as­tic about the admin­is­tra­tion’s announce­ment, respond­ing with these words: “Biden final­ly heard us on using the High­er Edu­ca­tion Act of 1965 — but he’s refus­ing to make stu­dent debt relief auto­mat­ic like we told him. That’s the fatal flaw.”

Mean­while, Wash­ing­ton’s senior Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray called on Con­gress to act.

“I’ve been push­ing along­side my Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­leagues in Con­gress to fix the bro­ken stu­dent loan sys­tem and deliv­er for bor­row­ers across the coun­try — and it’s time for Repub­li­cans to join us and get seri­ous about help­ing stu­dent bor­row­ers instead of push­ing night-and-day to rip away relief for mid­dle class fam­i­lies,” said Mur­ray, the first woman Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore in his­to­ry, who eas­i­ly won reelec­tion last year. “My sib­lings and I got through col­lege because the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment had our backs — and I won’t stop fight­ing to make sure every stu­dent in Amer­i­ca has the same oppor­tu­ni­ties we did.”