Andrew Restuccia and Gabriel T. Rubin:

Melanie Kelley, 38 years old, of Denver, has $125,000 in student loans. When the Biden administration’s pandemic-related pause on student-loan payments ends in May, she will owe $1,000 a month.

“It’s become this unmanageable beast for me,” she said. “May isn’t that far away. How am I going to figure this out?” A management consultant, she said she has worked as a DoorDash driver to supplement her income, but her debt has kept her from starting a family or buying a house.

“A lot of people are not going to vote again because they feel like they’re not being heard,” said Ms. Kelley, who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020.

Ms. Kelley is one of around 43 million Americans with student debt. As a candidate, Mr. Biden endorsed canceling $10,000 in student debt per borrower through legislation and proposed forgiving tuition-related federal debt for people who earned undergraduate degrees at public colleges and universities, as well as schools that historically serve Black and minority students.

All told, Americans owe around $1.6 trillion in federal student loans and more than $130 billion in private student loans, according to the data firm MeasureOne.