Biden Administration Extends Student Loan Repayment Pause

Politics|Biden medication extends a pupil indebtedness outgo pause.

• Aug. 6, 2021, 4:29 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Education Department announced Friday that it would proceed a moratorium connected national pupil indebtedness payments done Jan. 31, 2022, extending exigency alleviation for millions of borrowers that had been acceptable to expire adjacent month.

The section said that this would beryllium the “final extension” of the pause, which the Trump medication instituted successful March 2020 astatine the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, and that the further clip would let the bureau to modulation borrowers backmost into repayment and trim the hazard of default and delinquency.

“The outgo intermission has been a lifeline that allowed millions of Americans to absorption connected their families, wellness and finances alternatively of pupil loans during the nationalist emergency,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said successful a statement. “As our nation’s system continues to retrieve from a heavy hole, this last hold volition springiness students and borrowers the clip they need” to program to resume payments.

Several Democratic leaders successful Congress had pressed the Biden medication implicit the summertime to proceed the pupil indebtedness pause, saying that the fast-approaching expiration was ill-timed considering that millions were inactive suffering fiscal hardship from the pandemic.

“Since the opening of the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of Americans person struggled to support a extortion implicit their heads, wage bills and enactment nutrient connected the table,” the heads of the Senate and House Education Committees, Senator Patty Murray of Washington and Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, wrote in a June letter. “While the system has begun to amusement promising signs of recovery, much than 9 cardinal Americans stay retired of work, and the economical and wellness disparities created by the pandemic are severe.”

They besides wrote that the intermission had helped borrowers “cover indispensable expenses during the pandemic and during ongoing betterment efforts.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated that the intermission had saved borrowers $7 cardinal per period successful payments during the pandemic, according to the missive from Ms. Murray and Mr. Scott, and the Education Department estimated that borrowers saved astir $5 cardinal per period connected indebtedness interest.

Notably, the Education Department emphasized that January 2022 was a “definitive extremity date,” arsenic the Biden medication faces mounting unit from Democrats to erase up to $50,000 successful national pupil indebtedness debt.

In a associated statement, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the bulk leader, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — each Democrats who person urged President Biden to cancel pupil indebtedness indebtedness by enforcement bid — said the intermission “provided an tremendous alleviation to millions of borrowers facing a disastrous fiscal cliff” but didn’t spell acold enough.