The court case with more eyeballs on it than Judge Judy

If you heard a collective sigh of relief last Tuesday, it was probably because the Education Department extended its freeze on federal student-loan payments – for the seventh time. The latest moratorium was previously scheduled to end on January 1.

✋🚗 Driving the most-recent pause… Ongoing legal challenges to the Biden administration’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 worth of student-loan debt for tens of millions of borrowers.

• The program was placed on hold last month due to two separate court rulings, one of which struck down the program entirely. The White House filed an appeal in both cases, initiating a process that typically takes months to fully resolve.
• Federal student-loan payments are now scheduled to resume 60 days after all court battles have concluded. And if the litigation isn’t resolved by June 30, payments would resume on September 1.

🤔 One interesting thing: Around 500,000 people are still making federal student-loan payments despite the freeze, per the latest data – a number representing 1.16% of all such borrowers. That’s down from 18.1 million people who were voluntarily making payments shortly after the initial pause came into effect in March 2020.

+Dive deeper: See the 360° view on the Biden admin’s student loan forgiveness plan.