President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he is extending the pause on student loan payments until May 1.
Payments have been paused since the beginning of the pandemic, and were set to restart on Feb. 1, 2022. Biden said that ongoing concerns about the Omicron variant of COVID-19 are the reasoning for the extension.
“We know that millions of student loan borrowers are still coping with the impacts of the pandemic and need some more time before resuming payments,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.
Since the option has been given, almost all borrowers have accepted the relief, according to research.
The paused payments are estimated to be saving borrowers $5 billion a month, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That would have accounted for more than $115 billion dollars by February 2022.
There are about 42 million Americans with student loan debt, and the outstanding student load debt in the U.S. has surpassed $1.7 trillion. It affects more people than credit card and auto debt.
A recent survey by the Student Debt Crisis Center showed that 89% of fully-employed student loan borrowers say they are not financially secure enough to resume payments on Feb. 1, 2022.
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