CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Biden administration has extended the federal student loan pause through September 31. During that time people do not have to pay back their loans or pay interest on them. The extension comes after President Trump first paused payments last March.
Students are usually informed through email by the government that their loans are deferred until a set time.
Emily Bryant, a student at Texas A and M moved to Texas a year ago to get in-state tuition and has started to pay off her federal loans, but says the payments pause is still a stress reliever.
“It makes it to where I can focus more on my classes than I do of ‘how can I pay for this next thing’?” Bryant said.
Future parents of TAMUCC like Rocky Ramos are new to the loans process and didn’t even know about the president’s student loan forgiveness before today.
“There’s a lot of unknowns, like interest rates, scholarships, grants, what’s it going to look like in the new administration?” Ramos said.
Jeannie Gage, the director of student financial services at TAMUCC says it’s her job to counsel those looking into student loans. Gage says if a school goes beyond a 30 percent default rate then it could lose all federal funding, but says the school’s default rate is probably around 6 percent.
“We are affected if students don’t pay their loans on time. We have what we call a cohort default rate, so if students don’t pay their loans on time, if they default, then it affects our rate,” Gage said.
Even though Biden deferred payments with zero interest, some Democrats are calling for a cancellation of fifty thousand dollars in debt per borrower.
