For Immediate Release From The White House!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Friday announced a final extension of a coronavirus relief pause on federal student loan repayments, interest and collections until Jan. 31, 2022.
The extension of the pause, which had been due to expire on Sept. 30, comes as cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus continue to surge around the United States.
The Department of Education "believes this additional time and a definitive end date will allow borrowers to plan for the resumption of payments and reduce the risk of delinquency and defaults after restart," a White House statement said.
The department, the statement said, will begin notifying borrowers about the final extension in the coming days and "release resources and information about how to plan for payment restart as the end of the pause approaches."
"It is the department's priority to support students and borrowers during this transition and ensure they have the resources they need to access affordable, high-quality higher education," the statement quoted Education Secretary Miguel Cardona as saying.
In a separate statement, Biden said the pause extension is needed because the "road will still be long" for many borrowers despite Friday's jobs report showing July's unemployment rate at a 16-month low of 5.4 percent.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and two fellow Democratic lawmakers hailed the extension, but said the measure did not go far enough.
"Our broken student loan system continues to exacerbate racial wealth gaps and hold back our entire economy," he said in a statement with Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Ayanna Pressley. "We continue to call on the administration to use its existing executive authority to cancel $50,000 of student debt (per borrower)."
https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-announc... ********
Education Department Announces 'Final Extension' Of Student Loan Payment Freeze
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that federal student loan payments will remain on pause through the end of January.
Loan payments, interest accruals and collections of defaulted federal student loans have all been on hold since the start of the pandemic — first thanks to the CARES Act, then due to extensions from former President Donald Trump, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and President Biden.
https://www.wbur.org/npr/943293547/educati... Before Friday's announcement of the Jan. 31 extension, payments were set to resume in October.
The Education Department called this latest extension the final one.
"The payment pause has been a lifeline that allowed millions of Americans to focus on their families, health, and finances instead of student loans during the national emergency," U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a news release. "As our nation's economy continues to recover from a deep hole, this final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment."
In a Pew Charitable Trusts survey conducted this spring, when the moratorium was still set to expire on Sept. 30, two-thirds of respondents said they'd have a tough time affording payments once the freeze was lifted.
Democratic lawmakers — including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — had previously urged the Biden administration to extend the moratorium through at least March.
https://www.wbur.org/npr/1025556501/educat... ********
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE STUDENT LOAN EXTENSION
President Joe Biden’s administration announced Friday that the suspension on federal student loan repayments will continue through January 2022, saying that it will be the last time the freeze will be extended.
“The payment pause has been a lifeline that allowed millions of Americans to focus on their families, health, and finances instead of student loans during the national emergency,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement, Bloomberg reported. “As our nation’s economy continues to recover from a deep hole, this final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment.”
The extension means that payments won’t be due again until Feb. 1, 2022 and keeps the 0% interest rate and the freeze on collecting defaulted debt, according to the Washington Post.
Congress passed a coronavirus relief package in March 2020 that first suspended student loan payments through September. The benefit was extended by former President Donald Trump’s administration through Jan. 31 of this year, and Biden extended the freeze days before it was set to expire, at the time extending the suspension through next month.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who has previously urged Biden to cancel student loan debt, praised the move.
Read the full article HERE!:
https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/nati... ********
Pause on Student Loan Payments Extended to 2022
Borrowers will receive an extra four-month reprieve from student loan payments, after the federal government announced a new extension of a pandemic relief program.
Eight weeks from the program’s Sept. 30 expiration, the pause on student loan payments, interest, and default loan collections has been extended until Jan. 31, 2022, the Education Department announced Friday. This is the final time it will extend the pause, the department said, adding that the definitive end date will allow borrowers to better plan for the resumption of payments.1
About 26 million borrowers have not had to make payments on their federal student loans thanks to the relief program, according to department data, with interest waived for approximately 41 million. Those borrowers will receive notice about the new repayment start date from the federal government in the coming days, a statement issued Friday said.
“The payment pause has been a lifeline that allowed millions of Americans to focus on their families, health, and finances instead of student loans during the national emergency,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement Friday. “As our nation’s economy continues to recover from a deep hole, this final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment.”
Pause Began March 2020
Payments and interest on federal student loans have been paused since March 2020, at the outset of the pandemic. In one of his first acts in office, President Joe Biden issued an eight-month extension in January, pushing the program’s expiration at least to Sept. 30.2 Little had been said officially about the pause since then, despite a suggestion by Cardona in May that another extension was “not out of the question.” The lack of an update left borrowers and loan servicers alike confused as the deadline approached.
Read the full article HERE!:
https://www.thebalance.com/pause-on-studen...
Posted By: agnes levine
Saturday, August 7th 2021 at 11:29AM
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