American student loan debt is sky-high, with some estimates putting the total number over $2.19 trillion—that’s higher than all U.S. credit card and auto loan debt combined. President Joe Biden and his administration made numerous attempts to alleviate the burden of student loans, including an executive action that would have canceled student loans for 43 million borrowers. But in the end, these efforts did not have the major impact many had hoped for. Instead, Biden took smaller steps that eventually helped over 5 million Americans trim their student debt. In the waning days of his presidency, borrowers with disabilities, who attended schools that cheated and defrauded their students, and public service workers had their loans forgiven. In total, over $183 billion in relief was provided. “Since Day One of my administration, I promised to ensure higher-education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity, and I’m proud to say we have forgiven more student loan debt than any other administration in history,” Biden said in a press release.

Today, borrowers are staring down a new administration with an avowed populist agenda—things like cancelling the tax on tips and reducing the price of eggs. But few expect the Trump administration to be very forgiving when it comes to college students and their six-figure loan balances. It’s still early, but President Donald Trump has hinted at cancelling the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program or even the entire Department of Education. “We are concerned about ways that there could be a deconstruction of the ability for the Department of Ed to do its work, including the administration of the Title IV programs, including student loans,” says Yolanda Watson Spiva, president of Complete College America. While the possibilities could be monumental, experts say borrowers do not need to sound the alarm bells yet since uncertainty remains. Here’s what borrowers need to know—and do right now. It’s not time to panic about student debt issues—yet When it comes to loans, students and borrowers shouldn’t panic yet, says Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, an organization that provides free student loan advice to borrowers. While many borrowers are worried about potential changes, it is still early in the new administration, and little to no guidance has been provided, she adds. If the Department of Education is dismantled, which Mayotte and Watson Spiva both say is unlikely since it would require an act of Congress, current federal student loans won’t be majorly impacted. Loans would just transfer hands, and the terms and conditions would not change. see complete article HERE

Joe Biden: Latest student loan forgiveness deal............. Jan. 2025

Joe Biden will leave office with the legacy of approving the greatest amount of student debt relief of any president, changing the lives of millions of Americans. Many of these borrowers waited for years for the forgiveness while paying down their loans, in some cases sacrificing major life events such as buying a home due to their debt. Trump announces $20B US investment by Emirati businessman While grateful to see their loan balance disappear, borrowers who received forgiveness under Biden lament a system they say is holding back millions of others. “I finally got the loans forgiven in December 2023 and received the zero balance letter. How is it affecting me almost a year later? It really set me back over paying on these loans for years. I never built significant savings at all. I don’t have anything saved. I’m a solo parent, and I do not receive child support,” said Christinia Winton, a mother of two and public servant in Arizona who received loan forgiveness on almost $30,000 through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. The Biden administration forgave some $180 billion of student loans in total, taking away the debt entirely for almost 5 million Americans. The relief has largely been split up between those on income-driven repayment plans such as PSLF, the borrower defense program that forgives loans to those cheated by their schools and individuals with disabilities. One of Biden’s accomplishments in office was fixing some of the problems with PSLF, a program meant to give public service workers such as teachers and police a means to receive student debt relief if they make 120 qualifying payments. Biden made regulatory improvements on the program and gave a one-time count adjustment of payments to help get borrowers on the right track and shorten their repayment time. Lisa Ansell, an educator from California, was one of the people who got their loans cancelled in 2021 when Biden made those changes, after she was denied eight times. “I should have been eligible for public service loan forgiveness in 2017, which would have been the first cohort, because public service loan forgiveness was signed into law in 2007 […] I applied in 2017 and, of course, I was denied, no valid reason. We know that the Department of Education likes to invent reasons to prevent people from receiving their lawful cancelation,” said Ansell, the California chapter president for Student Loan Justice.

Jimmy Carter on his way back to Washington, where he remained an outsider Ansell said she was relieved, but “what I felt was anger and resentment because I had been kept in indentured servitude to the Department of Education for close to five extra years, and because of that, I was never able to save up any money.” While Biden forgave the most student debt of any president, his efforts affected only a small portion of the 45 million borrowers. But not for lack of trying: Biden did attempt to give $10,000 in student loan relief for all borrowers, but it was struck down by the Supreme Court. He also attempted to go through the regulatory process and expand relief to more groups but ran out of time and had to rescind the measure before President-elect Trump returns to office. Those losses were a significant blow to Biden’s agenda after he pledged sweeping relief on the campaign trail. “There are people that absolutely feel slighted, and sometimes their anger is maybe, maybe misplaced on the Biden administration,” said Daniel Collier, assistant professor of higher and adult education at the University of Memphis, when asked about borrowers who missed out on relief. “To be fair to people, though, the Biden administration has done a poor job of communicating with borrowers [what has been accomplished], especially these last few years, especially since the court cases have stalled,” he added. From borrowers who did get relief, Collier has heard the forgiveness gave them financial stability, career freedom to change jobs after exiting PSLF and a drop in mental distress over worrying about the debt. The loan forgiveness also takes away a major barrier for young Americans toward purchasing a home. A 2023 report from the Student Debt Crisis Center found more than half of borrowers with defaulted loans said their student debt prevents them buying a home. The Hill has reached out to the Biden administration for comment.J complete article here

More student loan relief, thanks to Joe Biden!

President Joe Biden's administration announced on Friday another $4.28 billion dollars in student loan relief for nearly 55,000 public service workers. The announcement brings the total loan forgiveness by the Biden administration to "approximately $180 billion for nearly 5 million Americans," according to a fact sheet from the Department of Education. The forgiveness will be delivered to individuals enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF), which allows for debt forgiveness for people in jobs like firefighting, nursing and teaching after 10 years of continuous payment.

The Biden administration has made fixes to this program that had failed to deliver student loan relief to many due to poor implementations and errors in the program, officials said. "The public servants approved for debt cancellation today include teachers, nurses, service members, law enforcement officials, and other public service workers who have dedicated their lives to giving back to their communities and who are finally earning the relief they are entitled to under the law," Biden said in a statement. Of the nearly 5 million borrowers who have had more than $180 billion in debt relieved by the administration, more than 1 million were through the PSLF. The relief for those PSLF borrowers totals about $78 billion, the administration said. forcomplete article see: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-announce-428-billion-student-loan-relief-55000/story?id=116975860

what is in the debt celing deal for student loans?

Speaker McCarthy says student loan payment pause 'gone' under debt ceiling deal. Here’s what that means.

The debt ceiling deal finalized between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday would reinstate student loan payments and the accrual of interest in late August. "The pause is gone within 60 days of this being signed," McCarthy said on Fox News, though the legislation, as with existing plans to sunset the pause, actually stipulates a timeline of 60 days after June 30. "So that is another victory because that brings in $5 billion each month to the American public." The Biden-McCarthy deal would suspend the debt limit until January 2025. The plan now heads to Congress for a vote. 'TWO VERY DIFFERENT PLACES':As Supreme Court gears up to rule on student loan cases, Americans are split on debt forgiveness Are student loans still deferred? Yes. Student payments and interest have been on pause since the onset of the pandemic, a moratorium first adopted and extended under former President Donald Trump and then extended again under Biden. But that won’t be the case for long. The Biden administration, whose mass student debt forgiveness plan is currently held up in the Supreme Court, has faced mounting pressure to lift the moratorium. Even before Sunday’s deal, efforts were underway to bring student loan payments back. A bill that passed out of the House last Wednesday would end the payments as well as Biden’s broader plan to relieve up to $20,000 in student loan debt for Americans with individual incomes of less than $125,000. Before that, in March, the student loan refinancing company SoFi sued the federal government over the pause, seeking to end it. BIDEN'S STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS PLAN:Lawsuit filed to end student loan payment pause Education Department prepares for return to student loan payments Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has stressed the moratorium has an expiration date. In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in May, the secretary said borrowers should prepare to start making payments again no later than 60 days after June 30 or after the Supreme Court issues its decision on the two cases challenging Biden’s broad relief plan. "The emergency period is over, and we’re preparing our borrowers to restart," Cardona said in the hearing. But as reported by Politico, internal Education Department documents indicate it could be until October at the earliest that the process resumes. According to the documents, department officials anticipate needing several months to transition back into payments. In a statement, a White House official said Biden "protected the student debt relief plan in its entirety," including that for mass forgiveness and for improvements to income-driven repayment options. "The administration announced back in November that the current student loan payment pause would end this summer — this agreement makes no changes to that plan," the official said, noting Biden retained his administration's "authority to pause student loan payments, as appropriate, in the event of future emergencies." *************************** for complete article go to:https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2023/05/28/debt-ceiling-deal-student-loan-debt-payment-pause/70266126007/

The Biden Administration’s Student Loan Debt Relief Plan

Part 1. Final extension of the student loan repayment pause Due to the economic challenges created by the pandemic, the Biden-Harris Administration has extended the student loan repayment pause a number of times. Because of this, no one with a federally held loan has had to pay a single dollar in loan payments since President Biden took office. The Biden-Harris Administration’s one-time student debt relief plan is necessary to address the financial harms of the pandemic, provide borrowers with a smooth transition back to repayment, and help borrowers at highest risk of delinquency or default once payments resume. While litigation is preventing us from providing the relief needed to avoid these harms, we don’t think it’s right to ask you to pay on loans you wouldn’t have to pay were it not for the lawsuits challenging the program.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in February 2023, and we’re hopeful the Court will rule in the Administration’s favor and allow us to move forward with the debt relief program. The pause will end 60 days after the Supreme Court makes a decision on the case. If no decision has been made by June 30, 2023, payments will resume 60 days after that. Visit StudentAid.gov/coronavirus regularly for the latest information on the payment pause and other COVID-19 relief.  Frequently Asked Questions Do I need to do anything to extend my student loan pause? No. The extended pause will occur automatically.   Part 2. Providing targeted debt relief to low- and middle-income families To smooth the transition back to repayment and help borrowers at highest risk of delinquencies or default once payments resume, the U.S. Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in debt relief to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education and up to $10,000 in debt relief to non-Pell Grant recipients. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 or $250,000 for households. Get details about one-time student loan debt relief. In addition, borrowers who are employed by nonprofits, the military, or federal, state, Tribal, or local government may be eligible to have all of their student loans forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. For more information on eligibility and requirements, go to PSLF.gov.  FOR COMPLETE ARTICLE SEE: https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief-announcement Frequently Asked Questions How do I know if I am eligible for debt relief?  To be eligible, your annual income must have fallen below $125,000 (for individuals) or $250,000 (for married couples or heads of households).  If you received a Pell Grant in college and meet the income threshold, you will be eligible for up to $20,000 in debt relief.  If you did not receive a Pell Grant in college and meet the income threshold, you will be eligible for up to $10,000 in debt relief.   What does the “up to” in “up to $20,000” or “up to $10,000” mean?  Your relief is capped at the amount of your outstanding debt. For example: If you are eligible for $20,000 in debt relief, but have a balance of $15,000 remaining, you will only receive $15,000 in relief.   What is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program? The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program forgives the remaining balance on your federal student loans after 120 payments working full time for federal, state, Tribal, or local government; the military; or a qualifying non-profit. Learn more about PSLF and apply. Temporary changes, which ended on Oct. 31, 2022, provided flexibility that made it easier to receive forgiveness by allowing borrowers to receive credit for past periods of repayment that would otherwise not qualify for PSLF. A borrower who missed the limited PSLF waiver deadline has one more chance to have their payment count corrected. Learn more about the opportunity for the one-time account adjustment. Visit the one-time student loan debt relief page for more information.  Part 3. Make the student loan system more manageable for current and future borrowers Income-based repayment plans have long existed within the U.S. Department of Education. However, the Biden-Harris Administration proposed a rule to create a new income-driven repayment plan that will substantially reduce future monthly payments for lower- and middle-income borrowers. The draft rule would: Require borrowers to pay no more than 5% of their discretionary income monthly on undergraduate loans. This is down from the 10% available under the most recent income-driven repayment plan. Raise the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary income and therefore is protected from repayment, guaranteeing that no borrower earning under 225% of the federal poverty level—about the annual equivalent of a $15 minimum wage for a single borrower—will have to make a monthly payment. Forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments, instead of 20 years, for borrowers with loan balances of $12,000 or less. Cover the borrower’s unpaid monthly interest, so that unlike other existing income-driven repayment plans, no borrower’s loan balance will grow as long as they make their monthly payments—even when that monthly payment is $0 because their income is low.  The Biden-Harris Administration is working to quickly implement improvements to student loans. Check back to this page for updates on progress. If you’d like to be the first to know, sign up for email updates from the U.S. Department of Education.

What are the chances Biden extends the student loan pause again?

President Biden faces a ticking timer on the resumption of student loan payments by the end of the summer — but will he allow it to go off? The payments, paused amid the coronavirus pandemic, are set to begin either 60 days after the Supreme Court makes a ruling on Biden’s student debt forgiveness program or 60 days after June 30, the White House has said. Biden had also previously said the payments would resume at the beginning of 2023, and that there would not be another extension of the pause, which began under then-President Trump in 2020. Although the White House won’t discuss the possibility of a Plan B if the high court strikes down Biden’s relief proposal, experts believe yet another extension of the loan payment pause is a possibility.

“I definitely think this is on the table,” said Rebecca Natow, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at Hofstra University and a higher education policy expert. Policy-wise, the move would put the Democratic president in line with student debt advocates and others in his party who are demanding an extension of the payment pause. “From a political standpoint, this is popular among a cross section of voting demographics, and that should always be a a consideration going into a presidential election year,” said Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist. Borrowers have not had to make their payments since March 2020, as the pause has been extended nine separate times. Even if the legality of Biden’s student debt relief plan isn’t resolved by June 30, the administration insists borrowers will have to soon begin repayment of student loan debt. “If the program has not been implemented and the litigation has not been resolved by June 30, 2023 — payments will resume 60 days after that,” the White House said when the last pause was extended. Trump and then Biden paused the payments under the authority of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act, which gives the Education secretary more power over student loans during a national emergency. Biden previously tied the resumption of payments to his proposal for up to $20,000 in student loan relief, but if that plan is struck down by the Supreme Court, the resumption of payments could be a blow for voters going into a presidential election year. “Anybody that takes the pause off is going to be relatively unpopular for a while and not just with Democrats,” said Daniel Collier, assistant professor of higher and adult education in the Department of Leadership at the University of Memphis. 7.8M people at high risk of struggling to pay student loans if pause expires However, if Biden sticks with payments resuming at the end of this summer, there is another whole year until the election, which could give borrowers time to move on from the decision. “The 2024 elections are still a year and a half away, so any action that occurs in the next few months would probably not be as impactful on the next presidential election as an action that happens closer to next November,” Natow said. The Biden administration could face difficulty either way, as it has not given a specific reason defining when the pause is no longer needed. “I believe the Biden administration has made several blunders with the repayment pause in the way that they’ve extended it,” Collier said. “They’re doing this seemingly arbitrarily, you know, there’s no economic targets for like when is it OK to turn this on.” Even if the political climate would seem ripe for another student loan extension, the legal headaches that follow might be costly. Currently, the administration is arguing that although the COVID-19 national emergency declaration is ending in May, they can still forgive student loan debts under the HEROES Act because it relates to the lingering effects of the pandemic. The White House could use the same argument for extending student loan payments yet again. “There’s nothing in the HEROES Act that limits the relief that the secretary can provide to the end date of the national emergency,” said Abby Shafroth, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project. The administration could point to its data that shows resuming student loan payments without debt relief could increase the number of delinquency and put borrowers in a worse financial position than before the pandemic. “There isn’t like a date certain. It’s not like you can only use [the HEROES Act] for one year after the end of the national emergency or anything like that. It’s just based on the facts. It’s based on when and whether relief is still needed to ensure that people aren’t left worse off as a result of the national emergency,” Shafroth added. FOR COMPLETE ARTICLE GO TO https://thehill.com/homenews/education/3937687-what-are-the-chances-biden-extends-the-student-loan-pause-again/

THE LATEST INFORMATION ON STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS

The Biden administration has yet again quietly updated the timeline for borrowers seeking student loan forgiveness under a one-time account adjustment, according to reports.

Student Loan Forgiveness: Relief for Public Loans Pushed Back Due to Lack of Funds Find Out: 10 Affordable New Items Coming to Dollar Tree This Spring In April 2022, the Department of Education announced updates that “will bring borrowers closer to forgiveness under income-driven repayment (IDR) plans.” Said updates include a one-time adjustment of IDR payment counters “to address past inaccuracies and permanently fixing IDR payment counting by reforming ED’s IDR tracking procedures going forward,” the department stated. As the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) indicated, IDR was originally designed to offer borrowers a reduced monthly payment tied to their income, not their outstanding balance. “In theory, federal law also provides that after a 20 or 25 year IDR repayment term, the borrower’s debt is canceled in full. However, in recent years, investigations by SBPC and the National Consumer Law Center, National Public Radio, and the Government Accountability Office revealed widespread problems with IDR,” the SBPC wrote in a January 2023 post. Forbes reported that when the Education Department announced the one-time adjustment last April, the guidance indicated that borrowers could start receiving student loan forgiveness by the fall of 2022, and that all others should receive their one-time retroactive credit by January. Then, in an updated guidance statement delivered October 2022, the department “maintained that borrowers eligible for immediate student loan forgiveness would still receive those benefits under the IDR account adjustment before the winter of 2022,” and that “all other borrowers would not receive retroactive IDR credit until July 2023,” according to Forbes. In a further December 2022 update, the department extended this timeline further, “pushing out expected student loan forgiveness under the adjustment to the spring of 2023, with all others receiving the benefits of the adjustment in the summer of 2023.” And now, the key dates have been pushed even further, Forbes noted. Take Our Poll: Do You Think Bankruptcy Is an Acceptable Way To Escape Student Loan Debt? Live Richer Podcast: How To Get Rid of Your Student Loan Debt In the latest guidance document released this week, the Education Department declared it still expects borrowers eligible for immediate student loan forgiveness under the IDR account adjustment to receive those benefits in the spring. But now, “All other borrowers will see their accounts update in 2024,” according to a press release — which, as Forbes noted, could translate to a delay of more than one year. FOR COMPLETE ARTICLE SEE:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/student-loan-forgiveness-rule-quietly-170841968.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJEwQv4N00WJmpJwuoy_Oi7214TOJHmyDSxBrMd4JpORsa6TOnqAJBIFUmegl27KazkntrCDgo2iR728wE20wmt3KyDbRnQsEiVZ0dKiAXtuWVs9YV5__omJX3KReGWmYWkF1da7eAd3Cz--8HW8WeRObAbY6ycYBnCkbZMljAEp According to Forbes, the delays are due to Congress not providing additional funding to the Office of Federal Student Aid in a recent budget bill.