On Wednesday, the Biden Administration announced a student loan forgiveness plan. While this program is seeing wide media coverage, we still don’t have access to a lot of detailed information regarding the logistics of the plan.
Today, I’m highlighting a few information resources that are important for borrowers to be aware of. They are also useful for staying informed about the plan, even if you personally will not be a recipient.
On August 24th, the White House released a fact sheet outlining Biden’s plan for administering student loan forgiveness.
The Office of Federal Student Aid (U.S. Department of Education) also released a fact sheet explaining some details related to the program. This page will surely be updated in the coming weeks. Currently, it includes important suggestions and deadlines, such as an advisory to borrowers to apply for forgiveness before November 15th, 2022 in order to receive relief by the loan payment pause deadline of December 31.
This fact sheet also notes that importantly, the application process is not open yet. It recommends subscribing to Department of Education news updates to receive timely notification of when applications do open. The subscription page provides an option to verify that you want updates on federal student loan forgiveness.
The Office of Federal Student Aid also provides a loan repayment simulator that helps borrowers choose the best payment plans for their loans. Hopefully, language will soon be added to the resource to help borrowers account for loan forgiveness in their estimates.
It is crucial that the Biden Administration releases more information - and soon - on how this program is going to work and what the larger implications for borrowers and taxpayers are. The Government Accountability Office has not yet released any reports responding to this week’s announcement, but I suspect that they might soon, so I suggest checking back. The GAO is a non-partisan and independent agency employed by Congress - its purpose is to provide information on where taxpayer dollars go and how government agencies could improve in function and transparency.
I’ve recommended AllSides.org before as a way to evaluate what various media sources are saying about a government program. They have a great roundup page of news reports on student loan forgiveness that I highly recommend exploring. Many media outlets fall victim to using charged and biased language in their reporting in general, but the topic of student loan forgiveness seems to be particularly susceptible to this. AllSides also released a helpful staff report that summarizes the announcement of the plan this week and consequent media coverage.
Hopefully, we will see further government information resources on student loan forgiveness appear in the coming days and weeks! For now, let me know in the comments which resources you’ve found to be most helpful and informative on the topic.
See you next week!