With the pause on student debt repayment by the Department of Education to help mitigate the impact of Covid-19 pandemic, expiring in January 2022, many Americans are bracing up after almost two years of relief for what has remained a nightmare.
The average student loan debt for new college graduates is about $30,000.
The suspension of the repayment of federal student loans was a Trump-era initiative. About 44.7 million Americans have outstanding student loan debt, totaling over $1.86tn, with 42.3 million Americans holding federal student loan debt.
It kind of concerns me a little bit with it coming back with what they’re going to be able to offer us in terms of payment plans,” Jennifer Rae Wilson was quoted by The Guardian as saying. “I’ve been making payments for 20 years and my balance has only gone up. That doesn’t make any sense. If I made a $1,000 per month payment on my car, or on my house, I would be paid off and I would not have a home loan or would not have a car loan. But with this, it doesn’t seem to make a difference.”
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A recent survey of more than 33,000 student loan borrowers conducted by the Student Debt Crisis Center found 89% of borrowers are not financially secure enough to resume payments on 1 February.
Black college graduates owe an average of $7,400 more in student loans than white college graduates, and that gap more than triples to nearly $25,000 after four years from graduation.