The Biden administration is considering extending the moratorium on federal student loan payments just weeks before it is set to expire as the highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus poses a new threat to the economy, NBCNews.com reported. A spokesperson for the Education Department said yesterday that the administration will announce "whether to extend the pause further" this week. Administration officials said in September that they did not intend to extend the pause beyond the Jan. 31 deadline, warning borrowers that they should be prepared to resume payments in February. For weeks the White House has maintained that President Joe Biden would stick to the timeline, even as Covid case numbers began to increase and as inflation concerns began to grip the country. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier in the day that "the president has not made a decision yet." Debt relief advocates and some Democratic lawmakers have pressured Biden to extend the moratorium, especially because his Build Back Better plan — which the White House has argued would lower costs for Americans — has failed to pass the Senate.
