The pause has frozen interest accruals on tens of millions of loans. And about 7.2 million borrowers who were in default got a reprieve from collections.
The so-called administrative forbearance was initially put in place as part of the CARES Act in March 2020, and was later extended by then-President Donald J. Trump. When Mr. Biden took office in January, he pushed the date back to Sept. 30 and then in August, he pushed it back ““one final time” to Jan. 31.
Even so, the kind of sweeping forgiveness that many progressives and activists sought has remained elusive. In recent months, their pleas have gone unanswered by Mr. Biden, who has said he has been reluctant to explore executive action to forgive large amounts of student loan debt, lest that relief go to people attending elite colleges. But this week, Kamala Harris, the vice president, spoke publicly about the need to provide relief to borrowers.
“I had student loans,” Ms. Harris said during an interview with the radio host Charlamagne tha God. “I mean, look, right now, we have so many people, tens of millions of people in the United States who are dealing with student loan debt and responsibilities, and it’s standing in the way of them being able to start a family or buy a home, and it is real, and we need to deal with it.”
On Wednesday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that conversations with advisers, including Ms. Harris, had led to Mr. Biden’s decision to extend the moratorium. Ms. Psaki said that the president’s endangered social spending plan was not the main reason for the student loan extension.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/your-money/student-loan-pause.html
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