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Ariana Baio
Aug 24, 2022
Student Loan debt relief expected in President Biden's Wednesday announcement
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The student loan service website Nelnet crash on Wednesday after President Joe Biden announced he would forgive $10k worth of student loan debt for people who make under $125k per year.
After months of promises and talk, Biden announced he and Department of Education would be forgiving up to $10,000 in federal loans for people and up to $20,000 for people who received a Pell Grant.
People quickly jumped onto student loan websites like Nelnet to check if they qualified, see if their loans had been forgiven, or apply for the program- ultimately crashing the website.
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"As a reminder, given today's student loan cancellation announcement, there's no immediate action needed on your part," Nelnet tweeted Wednesday afternoon.
People said they intended to check their loan payments to see if they had a Pell Grant or how much debt they still owed.
Other student loan websites like StudentAid.gov also faced similar issues.
\u201cEveryone get off of Nelnet. I'm trying to see something\u201d— \ud83c\udf38\ud83e\udeb7\ud83d\udcaeDesiree Renee\ud83c\udf38\ud83e\udeb7\ud83d\udcae (@\ud83c\udf38\ud83e\udeb7\ud83d\udcaeDesiree Renee\ud83c\udf38\ud83e\udeb7\ud83d\udcae) 1661358589
\u201ccannot remember if I have a pell grant, nelnet is down, chaos is spreading\u201d— Neeharika Simha (she/her) (@Neeharika Simha (she/her)) 1661358617
\u201clogging into nelnet to make sure my $10,000 Biden check cashed \u201d— zach (@zach) 1661357624
\u201cif we never let the Nelnet website uncrash they will have to cancel ALL the loans; keep logging in folks\u201d— stale cooper (@stale cooper) 1661357879
Behind mortgages, student loan debt makes up the largest amount owned by US residents with over 45 million people owing money to the government.
As inflation rises and people continue to recover from loss revenue during Covid-19, people have called on the president to take the off the burden of some debt.
Although the $10k loan relief is not as high as people hoped, it will still change people's lives.
\u201cIn keeping with my campaign promise, my Administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle class families breathing room as they prepare to resume federal student loan payments in January 2023.\n\nI'll have more details this afternoon.\u201d— President Biden (@President Biden) 1661355129
Loan forgiveness will occur automatically for people who's income information is in the Department of Education's system.
Otherwise people can apply for the program once applications open up. The Department of Education encourages those people to sign up for their newsletter so they can be notified when applications open.
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