November 28, 2022: On Tuesday, the Biden government stated that it plans to extend the payment delays on federal student loans following June or when it can move forward with its debt forgiveness plan.

Federal student loan bills are being scheduled to resume in January.

The administration’s action comes as an answer to a federal appeals court ruling from the previous week that imposed an injunction on the debt relief plan all over the nation.

“We’re opening the payment pause as it would be a bad idea to ask borrowers to pay a debt that they would not have to pay, were it not for the lawsuits revealed by Republican officials and special interests,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona stated.

The U.S. Department of Education stated that the pause will be followed until 60 days after the Biden administration can implement its student loan forgiveness idea and litigation is resolved. If it cannot proceed with its scheme and the legal challenges unfolding by June 30, 2023, student loan payments will begin 60 days later.

It’s the eighth time the Education Department is being extended the pandemic-era relief policy.

Federal student loan payments had paused since March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic initially reached the U.S. and crippled the economy. Restarting the bills for over 40 million Americans will be a huge task, and the Biden administration had wished to ease the transition by forgiving a big share of student debt first.

Yet not long after President Joe Biden revealed his sweeping plan to remove $20,000 in student debt for millions of Americans, several conservative groups and Republican-backed states which attacking the policy in the courts. Two of these lawsuits have succeeded in temporarily halting the relief, and the Education Department is closing its removal of the loan application portal this month.

A top official at the Education Department recently said that student loan default rates could spike if its loan forgiveness plan is thwarted “because of the ongoing confusion about what they owe.”