TAMPA, Fla. — Student loan debt in the United States is nearly $1.8 trillion. It's a daunting number, but new help is now available for millions of borrowers like Angelica Colwell.
"I graduated from law school in 1999… And I've been paying those loans back since then," Colwell explained.
She said her law school loans were originally around $70,000, and she's already paid about $60,000 but still owes just as much.
"Because of the way the interest goes. I haven't gotten anywhere... It's the one debt that I could never, I've never been able to catch up on," Colwell added.
That could soon change for Colwell. She's one of the millions of student loan borrowers who could benefit from the Biden administration's new plan SAVE.
"Someone going on SAVE will never have an increasing interest balance due to having a low payment. That's critical because we've had folks that have had enormous increases in their balances to where they might have started with $30,000, they're easily $100,000 or higher now," Christie Arkovich, who specializes in student loan work, explained.
She said the SAVE program isn't forgiving debt completely, but it's income-based and will keep interest from accumulating.
"Anyone who's making $30,000 and single, under SAVE, would arguably have zero payment. And, so, there'll be a lot of folks with a zero to maybe $100 payment... The vast majority of people that used to be repaid before COVID hit basically they're going to automatically transfer to SAVE, and SAVE will probably be about a third of what their former payment used to be. And that's significant right now," Arkovich added.
Because of this, Colwell said she'll finally be able to put a dent into her student loans.
"I think my savings is going to be around $61,000," she explained.
Meanwhile, Arkovich said SAVE's qualifications are unlike anything we've had previously.
"It's important to know that if you are married and you file a joint tax return, you can file a separate return come January and have your payment based solely on your income," Arkovich added.
As for Colwell, she said she's waited more than 20 years for something like this.
"At the end of the day, I feel like I'm getting out of it what I was hoping to get, which is just fair repayment of money that I borrowed," Colwell said.
