President Joe Biden announced an extension of a grace period for student loan repayment for people who have federally-guaranteed loans, providing temporary relief for millions who carry typically tens of thousands in debt, the Associated Press reports.
Payments were scheduled to restart May 1st under the Administration’s original pause, but the deadline will not be extended through August 2022. This benefits 46 million Americans who have a combined $1.6 trillion in college loans outstanding.
“It is ruining lives and holding people back,” Senator Patty Murphy, an advocate pushing for a solution to the student loan debt problem, said in a statement last month. “Borrowers are struggling with rising costs, struggling to get their feet back under them after public health and economic crises, and struggling with a broken student loan system — and all this is felt especially hard by borrowers of color.”