President Joe Biden confirmed in an announcement on August 24th that if you earn less than $125,000 annually (or $250,000 married filing jointly), you will be eligible to receive cancellation of up to $10,000 in federal student loans. If you were a Pell Grant recipient, you can get up to $20,000 in forgiveness.
The application is now open!
President Biden also announced your pause on repayments continues to be paused until year-end 2022. The Department of Education is also working on a proposal introducing a new repayment plan to ease the burden on borrowers.
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, borrowers haven’t had to pay a cent on their federal student loans. During this time, the pressure grew for the president to cancel the debt. It was one of the platforms Biden ran on for president in 2020.
When will I get my $10,000 student loan forgiveness?
The application for student loan forgiveness will be available no later than Dec. 31, when the pause on federal student loan repayments terminates.
We’re also holding out hope the DOE and IRS can collaborate with the student loan servicers on some sort of automation. This could cover as many as 8 million borrowers who may be automatically eligible to receive relief because relevant income data is already available to the Department of Education.