Department of Education accepting applications for Federal Student Loan Debt Relief
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ROCHESTER, N.Y. — If you’ve got federal student loans, the application to forgive some of the loans is now live. You can apply here.
The White House has a plan to wipe clean the college loan debt of some 20 million Americans and significantly lower the balances for another 20 million.
If you have federal student loans and you’re making less than $125,000 a year, the federal government plans to forgive $10,000 worth of your debt.
If you have federal loans and you received Pell Grants, which is primarily for students who were considered low-income at the time, you’ll get $20,000 wiped off your balance.
The Department of Education launched its beta website to apply for federal student debt forgiveness. The site was launched Friday night as a test ahead of the official launch date later this month. People will be able to fill out an application in just a few minutes.
In most cases, the loan processor will handle the forgiveness automatically if you qualify. But to make sure you’re on their radar, there is a simple application you should fill out.
That application went live over the weekend. It takes about 5 minutes to fill out and once you do, the feds will determine your eligibility and contact you if they need any additional information.
You’re encouraged to file your forms by November 15 if you want to see your balance shrink before the end of a freeze on payments that began during the pandemic and ends in January.
We should mention the department of education is facing several lawsuits challenging this student loan forgiveness policy. A federal judge is likely to decide soon whether to temporarily block the program from taking effect, which could put student loan cancellation on hold until a judge issues a final ruling on the case. We’ll keep you posted on that.
The Department of Education crunched the numbers and found that in New York State, 2.3 million borrowers will qualify for student loan forgiveness if it goes through. Of those people, 1.3 million got the Pell Grants, so they’ll get the full $20,000 in forgiveness.