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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 More than 1.5 million people in New York were eligible or applied for student loan forgiveness under the plan introduced by President Joe Biden last year, which is currently halted due to lawsuits by opponents of the program.<\/p>\n
The Biden-Harris Administration released new data last week that showed the number of people in each state who applied for relief or were automatically eligible for relief. In August, Biden announced the student debt relief plan that aims to help working- and middle-class borrowers by forgiving some of their debt. It provides eligible borrowers with full or partial discharge of loans up to $20,000 to Federal Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 to non-Pell Grant recipients.<\/p>\n
But the plan was soon blocked by a U.S. District Court in Texas<\/a>. As a result, the StudentAid.gov<\/a> website stopped accepting applications, as the federal government seeks to overturn the orders. In response, the pause on student loan repayments was extended<\/a> while the courts make a decision about the plan.<\/p>\n In the less than four weeks that the application was available last year, 26 million people across the United States applied for debt relief or had already provided sufficient information to the U.S. Department of Education to be deemed eligible for relief. More than 16 million of those borrowers\u2019 applications were fully approved and sent to loan services.<\/p>\n According to the data, 1,549,000 people in New York were already eligible or applied for relief and 998,000 of those applications were fully approved and sent to loan services to discharge in the state.<\/p>\n According to a notice on StudentAid.gov<\/a>, the pause on student loan payments has been extended until the \u201cU.S. Department of Education is permitted to implement the debt relief program or the litigation is resolved.\u201d Payments will restart 60 days later, should the debt relief program be implemented.<\/p>\n If it has not been implemented and the litigation has not been resolved by June 30, 2023, then payments will resume 60 days after that.<\/p>\n Here are four steps to make sure you\u2019re prepared for student loan payments to resume, according to StudentAid.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n If the application for student loan debt relief becomes available again, borrowers can go to studentaid.gov\/debt-relief\/application<\/a> to fill out the application, which will take about five minutes. You don\u2019t need to log in or provide any documents.<\/p>\n Those who are eligible for debt relief include:<\/p>\n — Individuals who made less than $125,000 in 2021 or 2020.<\/p>\n — Families who made less than $250,000 in 2021 or 2020.<\/p>\n — Meeting the income criteria for either 2020 or 2021.<\/p>\n If you filed federal taxes, your income requirements are based on your adjusted gross income (AGI), which tends to be lower than your total income. Your AGI can be found on line 11 of the IRS Form 1040.<\/p>\n If you have eligible federal student loans<\/a> and meet the income requirements, it doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019ve been actively repaying your loans or are in school, have been granted a grace period, or are in default, the U.S. Department of Education states.<\/p>\n The debt relief applies only to loan balances you had before June 30, 2022. Any new loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2022, aren\u2019t eligible for debt relief. Other rules apply to consolidation loans<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can receive up to $20,000 in debt relief if you received a Federal Pell Grant in college and meet the income requirements.<\/a> You can receive up to $10,000 in debt relief if you didn\u2019t receive a Federal Pell Grant in college and meet the income requirements.<\/a><\/p>\n For more information, visit studentaid.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON <\/b>FACEBOOK <\/b><\/a>AND <\/b>TWITTER<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n