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President Biden’s student loan payment pause is set to end in less than two weeks but loan borrowers are wondering whether the pause will be extended for a seventh time. The pause, which first went into effect in March 2020, is set to end on Aug. 31. Although there’s evidence that the pause will see another extension, it’s the closest the pause has come to an end date without being extended again. Many borrowers feel ill-prepared at the prospect of resuming payments with such short notice.
“I don’t think if I had to pay my student loans I would have been able to eat. I’ve been operating, not just paycheck to paycheck, but I’m borrowing money and using credit to pay for basic survival needs,” Victoria Loe, who’s attended several different Virginia colleges, tells TIME. “I haven’t quite processed the fact that that’s something I’m going to have to start paying for. I’ve been working minimum wage for the past couple of years.”
Read More: What We Know So Far About President Biden’s Plan to Forgive Student Loans
In June, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said that borrowers will receive “ample notice” on any decisions regarding loan payments. In July, Biden said that he would share his decision on whether or not to extend the pause by the end of August.
“My rent just went up but I got a new job, so I was really hoping that because I got a pay increase I could start paying off all those debts, actually saving money and working towards improving my financial standing,” Loe says. “But if I have extra few hundred dollar payments that come up every month, all of those goals and intentions that I have are going to fly out the window.”
The student loan payment pause, an initiative through COVID-19 Emergency Relief and Federal Student Aid, began under the Trump administration to…
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Source : time
