Tyrone Hanley grew up in poverty, and always worries about sliding back. But over the last few months, he’s been able to do something unexpected, especially during the pandemic: save money.

Back in March, the Trump administration gave borrowers like Hanley the option to postpone their federal student loan payments for 60 days as the economy took a turn for the worse. Congress then extended the reprieve through the end of September when it passed the CARES Act, allowing millions of borrowers the chance to breathe a sigh of relief. The new law also prevented interest from accruing, and suspended debt collection and wage garnishment through the Sept. 30 deadline.

As a result, Hanley found himself with several hundred dollars a month to spare, allowing him to start making significant contributions to an emergency savings fund for the first time — a critical safety net if the pandemic claims his job.

“Building a cushion has helped ease my anxiety,” he says. “But unfortunately I know this forbearance is going to end.”

And if Congress decides not to extend the student loan payment deferrals next month, Hanley will be right.

In May, House Democrats passed a $3 trillion stimulus and recovery package called the HEROES Act, which extends the cancelation of payments through Sept. 2021 and expands the law to include other types of loans that were left out of the first round. The House version also includes $10,000 in debt cancellation for economically distressed borrowers with both public and private loans.

But Senate leaders oppose the House’s version. Instead, they’re trying to permanently simplify what is viewed as an overly complicated repayment system by trimming it down to just two repayment options. They are extending student loan payment relief — but only to borrowers who have no income. But critics say that’s a type of relief that was long in place prior to the most recent economic downturn, and still leaves out private student loans while failing to protect borrowers in default from having their wages and retirement benefits garnished.

A coalition of 56 student consumer advocate groups is now urging Congress to extend the relief the first stimulus package offered and to expand those benefits to all borrowers. They say that trying to overhaul the complicated loan payment system right now won’t provide any actual relief to borrowers.

In a letter to Congress, the groups criticized a Republican proposal within the Senate’s stimulus plan that could result in some borrowers paying even more than they were before the pandemic. Married borrowers who file their tax return separately would see their spouse’s income included in their repayment calculations, which would drive those payments up significantly.

“This proposal provides no new relief for student loan borrowers. It merely repackages the programs that currently exist and leaves borrowers with a less generous, more onerous, and ultimately more expensive repayment plan,” said Persis Yu, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, in a statement. “It further subjects distressed borrowers to harsh government collection tactics starting on October 1.”

The Senate proposal to continue the payment reprieve for borrowers with zero income leaves people like Hanley, who works as an attorney at a non-profit organization, with no relief at all.

Hanley knew from a young age that he wanted to be an advocate for LGBTQ people and families who share his childhood experiences. “I decided to go into law because as someone who grew up poor and gay, I wanted to become a policy advocate to address the root causes of poverty,” he says.

But without outside financial support, Hanley had to rely on federal student loans. Even with choosing to attend law school at the University of the District of Columbia — a much more affordable option than other programs in the District — Hanley still racked up over $200,000 in debt to complete the education needed to achieve his dream job.

And he’s not alone.

The Washington metro area ranks among the top 10 places where people carry the most student loan debt, according to the credit reporting agency Experian’s latest data. Nationwide, student loan debt has increased 116% in the last decade, outpaced only by mortgage debt. The District itself wins for the highest average debt in the nation, at $55,882 as of December 2019.

The pandemic has hit low-income communities particularly hard, and even $10,000 worth of debt cancellation has been shown to make significant gains for those borrowers. Yu says there’s a large portion of people who would see their debt totally canceled with just that amount of help.

“Some of the most vulnerable student loan borrowers would have complete cancellation and that would really allow them to move forward in the economy, whereas right now, it’s holding them back, and we just don’t want borrowers held back right now,” Yu said.

Students of color are more likely to use federal student loans than their white peers, and are significantly more likely to face default. The Center for American Progress found that white undergraduate students who used loans to fund their education owe 50% of their original balance just 12 years after beginning their degree programs. Black borrowers, on the other hand, owe more than they originally borrowed — and Latino students owe 50% more than their white counterparts.

“Low-income students and students of color — the populations the Higher Education Act was designed to help — are more likely to take on student loan debt than their wealthier and white peers,” said Yu.

According to Yu, there isn’t a clear answer to why this is true, but it’s likely a product of students of color being disproportionately targeted by for-profit schools, wage discrimination that makes borrowers unable to afford payments, and the prolonged racial wealth gap resulting from a lack of generational wealth.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced in May that the city would step in to provide additional relief to residents not covered by the CARES Act, which only suspends payments and offers protection for loans owned and serviced by the Department of Education. Residents with commercially-owned federal loans or privately-held student loans are eligible for relief from the city government, with support from the twelve most prominent servicers.

The relief includes providing a minimum of 90 days of forbearance, waiving late payment fees, eliminating negative credit reporting, and ceasing debt connection lawsuits for up to three months. But now that 90 days have passed, it’s unclear if these benefits are being extended or if D.C. will step in if Congress doesn’t extend benefits after the deadline next month. The mayor’s office and the office of At-Large D.C. Councilmember Grosso did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

Andrew Katz-Moses is a financial planner in D.C. who works primarily with teachers in the region. With the amount of student loan borrowers in the area, he wasn’t surprised when his phone started ringing during the pandemic. Katz-Moses started offering a webinar series for a charter school in the District about a variety of pandemic related financial resources, but student loan relief was a top priority.

“I definitely got a lot of outreach about it. We talked about changes in tax rules, taking distributions from retirement accounts and the student loan changes… but I spent 90% of that webinar talking about student loans,” Katz-Moses says.

In a White House press briefing last week, President Trump said he would consider extending the payment deferral and debt cancellation for student loans, but was unclear if that meant for all borrowers, or just those with zero income as the current Senate version proposes.

“We also suspended student-loan payments for six months,” Trump told reporters. “And we’re looking to do that additionally, and for additional periods of time.”

For now, the House and Senate remain far apart when it comes to how they will address relief for student loan borrowers. And that’s a painful reality for Tyrone Hanley.

“It’s been fascinating. This is what it could be like if I didn’t have all these student loan payments to make,” Hanley says about the extra income he has taken in while his student loan payments have been suspended.

“I honestly don’t imagine me and my partner owning a home in the near future, but if I didn’t have these payments, maybe we could.”