After months of President Joe Biden’s insistence that he will not pursue large-scale student debt cancellation, White House officials are now considering ways for the president to use executive power to cancel part of the student debt.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Thursday he had met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Derrick Johnson, NAACP chief executive officer, “to find a way forward” on the issue of student loans. debt.

“As a first generation student, I understand the importance of a plan focused on dealing with student debt,” Cardona said on social media after the meeting. “I am delighted to get down to work supporting the future of our students. “

The meeting comes as some progressive Democrats say Biden’s more than $ 2 trillion infrastructure plan does not go far enough and leaves many of their priorities to another bill at a later date.

Earlier this year, shortly after Biden was sworn in, Schumer, Warren and influential members of the Progressive House caucus, including Representative Ilhan Omar from Minnesota and Representative Ayanna Pressley from Massachusetts, called on Biden to cancel student loan debt, framing him as a responsibility to voters of color who played a crucial role in his election.

“We are here to demand legislation tailored to the needs of the movement that won this victory, to finally center our most vulnerable and marginalized communities to demand a recovery that finally invests in people,” Pressley said, framing the cancellation of student debt as a matter of racial and economic justice and arguing that Biden “is bold and responsive to the movement that elected him.”

“I won’t make it,” he said, citing concerns over debt cancellation for borrowers who graduated from elite schools like Harvard University – essentially endorsing the idea that the Large-scale student loan debt cancellation often benefits richer borrowers.

“I understand the impact of debt and how debilitating it can be,” he said. “I think at this time of economic pain and strain that we should eliminate the interest on the debts that are piling up. I’m prepared to write off $ 10,000 but not $ 50,000.”

Congressional Democrats have long insisted that Biden could use executive power to write off all student loan debt, but Biden has consistently refuted that claim. Now, it looks like the White House is in fact considering ways the president could use the executive branch to write off some of the student loan debt.

Ron Klain, White House Chief of Staff says Politico On Thursday, Biden asked Cardona to prepare a note on his legal authority to cancel student debt and that, based on that note, which is being prepared in conjunction with the Department of Justice, Biden will decide how to proceed.

The note should be sent to his office as early as next month.