The official application for federal student loan forgiveness went live Monday, President Joe Biden announced during an update on the forgiveness process.
“It takes less than five minutes” to fill out, Biden said during his remarks. “This is a game changer for millions of Americans. Get moving.”
A test version of the application was launched Friday night and was available intermittently over the weekend. Borrowers were surprisingly pleased with the beta application over all, telling Fortune it was simple to use and required no documents or other uploads that could slow down the process. Over 8 million people have already applied using the beta application, according to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, who was at the briefing with Biden. Those applicants will not need to apply again.
StudentAid.gov
Applicants for the up to $20,000 in student loan forgiveness can apply at StudentAid.gov, the website for Federal Student Aid. Borrowers who earned under $125,000 (or $250,000 for couples) in 2020 or 2021 and received a Pell Grant while in school can receive up to $20,000 in debt cancellation; others meeting those income limits can get up to $10,000.
Forgiveness will be granted on a rolling basis. The administration previously estimated it would take six weeks for the applications to be processed.
But it could take much longer than that, particularly with legal challenges still ongoing. Multiple lawsuits from conservative and libertarian groups have been filed and have already slowed down the forgiveness process. The Department of Education originally said the application would be available in “early” October. Even with the application launch, the Department of Education promised a federal court that no debt will actually be canceled before Oct. 23, 2022.
“Litigation is under way. I don’t think, our legal judgement is it won’t [stop it],” Biden said during the briefing.
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