Those receiving federal student loans can expect an extension of the already established moratorium on repayment after President Joseph R. Biden Jr. directed the Department of Education to postpone the resumption date until September.
According to the Institute for College Access and Success, as of 2020, there are more than 45 million borrowers who collectively owe nearly $1.6 trillion in student loans to the federal government, averaging approximately $29,200 per person.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Chuck Schumer advocated for total debt forgiveness in December 2020. At that time, they had proposed to then President-elect Biden to implement a student loan forgiveness program that would benefit “three out of four borrowers.”
Warren had urged Biden to take a stand against student loan forgiveness and explained the effects of her proposal at a student press roundtable on Dec. 7.
“For tens of millions of borrowers, it’s an impossible burden,” Warren said. “Nearly 43 million Americans are buried under one and a half trillion dollars of federal student loan debt, close to nine million of those borrowers are in default.”
Warren and Schumer had proposed a $50,000 debt forgiveness program for those who make under $125,000 a year.
The moratorium, which is expected to expire on Sept. 30, is not what the senators had been pushing for but is expected to alleviate some of the burden students are experiencing as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
As of December 2020, 10.7 million Americans were unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of those, college-aged students made up one of the largest groups of unemployed individuals, accounting for 6.3% of the population.
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