ST. PETE, Fla. — For the time being, President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program is on pause. A U.S. appeals court decided on Friday to temporarily block the plan to forgive and cancel billions of dollars in student loans.
22 million borrowers, including Erica Lovelette, now await the decision from the high court.
"We've been paying it for a while now. So it'd be nice to have that paid off. I cannot have that as another expense that we have to pay for monthly," said Lovelette.
Lovelette has included student loans in her monthly bills for the last 15 years. She was excited to learn the plan would cancel $10,000 in loans plus an additional $10,000 for Pell Grant recipients.
"It definitely contributes to not being able to do some things or being careful with purchases or whatnot. And it would make a big difference for sure. But again, it would be nice to have it paid for and waived, but at the same time, kind of gotten used to it for, like I said, 15 years paying for it to be able to pay that off," she added.
Achieva Credit Union Manager Jay Perez is hearing similar tales of people waiting on the relief.
"There was a young lady professional, has been out of school just a couple of years. And one of her comments was to the effect that if that is the case, because in her case, having had a Pell Grant, it actually is $20,000. So it's such a huge chunk, that she might be able to pay off what remains in less than three years," Perez said.
Then there's the concern from people new to their debt. like University of South Florida St. Pete freshmen Ella Barnes and Lily Sanchez.
"After this, I'm gonna have to go to more school. And I don't know how much time I'll have for a job in that case. And also, my potential job afterwards, after college is not the greatest paying," said Barnes.
The freshmen are both paying out-of-state tuition.
"My parents were very skeptical about letting me come all the way from Illinois to Florida, just because they were like, 'Are you sure you want to go that far and go that much into debt for something that is like completely uncertain?'," Sanchez added.
Jay Perez advised people to continue to apply for forgiveness despite the legal issues.
"The government is still able to review those applications. They're still able to go ahead and transfer or transmit that to loan officers. The only thing they can't do is officially forgive the debt while the stay is in place," he said.
The Biden administration announced plans to erase that debt as early as mid-November. Because of the legal woes, it's up in the air when the relief could come.
For Lovelette, that money would go right back into student loans.
"I actually have a daughter here at the college right now. So that would definitely help paying for her education," she said.
Whether the money comes or doesn't come, Perez said to continue to budget and seek out help from a financial institution.
"If they're in any kind of a situation where they need help in planning that debt, maybe looking at all their debt and seeing what can be done to alleviate some of it, through, you know, some kind of debt consolidation, we can definitely work with that, or also look and see what we can work on to help them tackle that high interest debt first, and move from there," he said.
