State Attorneys General don't think student-loan borrowers should have to pay off their loans while struggling to resolve issues with their balances.
Last week, 19 state attorneys-general sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona expressing'serious concerns' with the repayment process and the harm it inflicts on borrowers in their states.
The unprecedented transition to repayment is leaving federal student-loan companies with difficulties managing call volume and borrowers' questions, they wrote. The pandemic has resulted in inaccurate payment calculations caused by the transfer of borrowers to new companies.
The attorneys general said borrowers were facing issues signing up for Biden's new income-driven repayment plan, known as the SAVE plan, and in one case, a borrower reported that their servicer removed them from a repayment plan without any notice, causing their monthly payment to skyrocket from $759 to $6,843.
The pandemic relief for borrowers was officially ended on October 1, when bills started coming due after an over three-year pause. Interest also started growing on balances in September because of the debt ceiling bill Biden signed into law in June that codified the end of the student-loan payment pause.
Over the past few months, borrowers have been struggling with their servicers as they began to prepare for repayment. The attorneys-general said that borrowers are spending hours on hold with their servicer and that limited Federal Student Aid funding is making it difficult to provide more resources to servicers to better assist borrowers.
Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal, who was Education Minister, told Insider.
MOHELA, president of the United States of America, said: 'It's time for the president to step down,' he said.
The Education Department has not publicly responded to the attorneys generals' request to place borrowers on administrative forbearance, without accruing interest, until issues with their accounts are resolved. But they said that doing so is crucial as borrowers enter uncharted repayment territory.