Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. vowed today to seek new ways of helping American families afford to send their children to college.

In particular, he said, he planned to work with the Treasury Department to make college-savings plans more affordable, potentially by creating low-interest loans against tax-deferred 529 savings plans. Such plans, named for the section of the federal tax code that authorizes them, have been squeezed in recent months as the stock market has plunged and state budgets have seized up.

While noting several recent steps, such as pushing for more money for Pell Grants, Mr. Biden said he wanted to make further progress, such as extending a tax credit for families paying for college and making government-backed student loans more cost-efficient.

Mr. Biden’s remarks were part of a meeting of his Middle Class Task Force, which includes cabinet members and other officials. He was joined today at the University of Missouri at St. Louis by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri, and Mr. Biden’s wife, Jill, a longtime community-college instructor. —Megan Eckstein