Democratic presidential contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Tuesday that she would begin to forgive student loan debt on the first day of her administration, using legal tools that would allow her to bypass Congress.

The announcement, which comes just weeks before voting begins in the first primary and caucus states, adds urgency to legislation she introduced over the summer to cancel the bulk of the nation's outstanding student loan debt.

That bill, introduced with Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., would forgive up to $50,000 in student debt for individuals with household incomes under $100,000. But Warren wrote in her plan on Tuesday that the U.S. Education Department already has authority to cancel student debt, "and we can't afford to wait for Congress to act."

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"I will start to use existing laws on day one of my presidency to implement my student loan debt cancellation plan that offers relief to 42 million Americans — in addition to using all available tools to address racial disparities in higher education, crack down on for-profit institutions, and eliminate predatory lending," she wrote in the plan.

Warren is fighting to make a splash in the Iowa and New Hampshire contests early next month. The Massachusetts progressive has slipped in state polls in recent weeks, and is now behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in both states. She also trails Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, in Iowa.

Americans hold more than $1.5 trillion in student debt, and the problem is particularly acute in Iowa and New Hampshire. More than 60% of new graduates in Iowa and 76% of those in New Hampshire have outstanding student debt, according to The Institute for College Access & Success. And recent graduates in those states also carry higher balances than the national average of around $30,000.

Warren tweet

Warren's plan to eliminate student debt goes further than the proposals put forth by Biden or Buttigieg but stops short of Sanders' call to erase student debt entirely.

Alongside the new plan, Warren released a letter written to her by three legal experts who vouched for the legality of a president canceling student debt through executive action. The experts, based at the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School, described such a move as "lawful and permissible."