Department of Education’s vague email today

An email went out to federal student loan borrowers today that was rather vague. It basically said to stay tuned. None of us know exactly what the Biden administration is up too, other than confusing all of us, but it’s possible that they could be talking about this:

A new student loan forgiveness plan that will be geared toward four broad categories of borrowers:

Borrowers who have accumulated large amounts of interest.
Borrowers who haven’t enrolled in programs such as an IDR or public service forgiveness but appear to be eligible.
Borrowers who first entered repayment at least 20 or 25 years ago.
Those who previously enrolled in what the department considers “low-financial-value programs” based on poor outcomes.

As student debt advocates, we can appreciate automatic forgiveness for folks who are eligible for relief but not getting it. We see that everyday. During our strategy sessions, we are often identifying potential avenues for full forgiveness that wasn’t even on someone’s radar. Remember, your servicer is basically a debt collector which represents your creditor. They are not your advocate. Test this yourself, if you can stand to call your servicer a handful of times, I can practically guarantee that you will receive several different answers. And that was before all the injunctions of the past few weeks made it even more confusing. I saw a listserve post today from another attorney who was speaking on student loans tomorrow and wasn’t really sure what to say. What regs are in effect? Is all of SAVE on hold, or are portions still working? Mainly, what should people do?

Student loan forgiveness has become a very sticky point and a hot election issue. Due to this, all efforts should be taken by borrowers to understand their loans, and how to obtain forgiveness now — especially due to the uncertainty of the future.

To help with all this, please keep checking this blog, check out our Youtube videos here or schedule a Strategy Session with us with the link below.