WASHINGTON, D.C. — Millions of Americans could see student loan relief.

According to CNBC, U.S. District Judge Randall Hall is letting a temporary restraining order against the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan expire — allowing President Biden to move forward with the plan.

This comes just over a month out from the Presidential Election.

The new plan was announced in April, after the Supreme Court rejected Biden’s first attempt at student loan relief in 2022. This newest program aimed grant partial forgiveness to over 20 million Americans.

The plan would forgive student debt for four groups of borrowers:

• Borrowers who owe more than originally borrowed
• Borrowers who have been in repayment for decades
• Students at schools with a low financial value
• Those qualified for loan forgiveness under an existing program but have not applied for it yet

This isn’t over, as the multi-state lawsuit that paused the plan will still need to play out. Hall has just denied one state and transferred the case to a different state court.

News10NBC’s Eriketa Cost had a conversation about it with financial expert Chuck Wade, Senior VP for Brighton Securities. 

“It’s such a strong issue for a lot of people. And it’s a very divisive issue for a lot of people. So, I would expect that it would change, it may change again, it may happen more than once, and that may be fairly quickly given that we’re less than a month away from an election, a presidential election nonetheless,” he said.

Wade said we can expect both sides of the political spectrum to make a lot of noise in the coming weeks.

Eriketa Cost: “Often times we hear people talk about long-term implications for this.” 

Chuck Wade: “When there is forgiveness of a debt, it can be considered income. That’s something that people don’t often realize and there’s not a good job done by anyone for making people aware of that. If you’re getting a balance forgiven, it could potentially be considered taxable income, and some people might be in for an unhappy surprise when they go to file their taxes.”

In the meantime beware of scams. You never have to pay for help with your student aid. If a company contacts you offering help with forgiveness, cancellation or relief for a fee, don’t accept. You can look for more resources on our website and studentaid.gov.

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