Biden will 'make a decision' about canceling student debt or extend the payment pause again before August, the White House says

• White House's Jen Psaki said Biden will extend the student-loan payment pause again, or cancel debt.
• She told Pod Save America the decision will happen before payments are set to resume after August.

Millions of federal student-loan borrowers just got an additional four month reprieve from making payments, and the White House indicated more relief will be coming.

"Between now and August 31, it's either going to be extended again or we're going to make a decision, as Ron [Klain] referenced, about canceling student debt," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told Pod Save America last week.

Klain, President Joe Biden's chief of staff, told the same podcast in March that leading up to the prior May 1 payment restart date, the president would either extend the pause again — which he did — or decide how he can act on student debt using executive action.

Two weeks ago, Biden announced his fourth extension of the student-loan payment pause, with waived interest, through August 31, and while the announcement contained no mention of broad student-loan forgiveness, many Democratic lawmakers and advocates are hoping that will be the next step the president takes to address the growing $1.7 trillion crisis.

And while both Democratic and Republican lawmakers were critical of the additional relief — the GOP did not want another extension and Democrats wanted a longer one — some leading lawmakers are appearing optimistic about what might be next. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said during a virtual summit last week that he has talked to Biden frequently about student debt relief, and those conversations are making an impact.

"We're working on it," Schumer said. "We're making progress, folks. We are making progress. The White House seems more open to it than ever before."

Over past months, the messaging from the White House on student-debt relief has remained fairly consistent. Psaki told reporters on numerous occasions that if Congress sends Biden a bill to cancel student debt, he will happily sign it, but earlier this month, she noted that Biden "has not ruled out" using executive action to cancel student debt.

Even so, it appears unlikely that Biden will wipe out the whole student-debt load if he does choose to use his authority. Psaki told Fox News last week she suspects borrowers will have to make payments "at some time" during the Biden administration, dashing many Democrats' hopes of full cancellation.

But at this point, lawmakers just want to see progress made. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who championed the $50,000 student-debt cancellation proposal, was one of the nearly 100 lawmakers who recently called on Biden to cancel "a meaningful amount" of student debt, and she recently told Insider "the President has the clear legal authority to cancel student debt and it's long past time for him to act on meaningful loan forgiveness."