A Maryland woman said she paid off her daughter's student loans just 2 weeks before Biden's debt relief plan

• A woman finished paying off her daughter's student loans just days before Biden's relief plan was announced.
• Patricia Young told The Washington Post she didn't regret paying back the loans.

A Maryland woman said she paid off her daughter's student loans just days before Biden's debt relief plan was announced.

The woman, Patricia Young, told the Washington Post that she completed the last payment of her daughter's federal loans on August 8 — just 16 days before the Biden administration announced a plan that would have forgiven a portion of the debt.

On August 24, Biden announced a nationwide plan that would wipe $10,000 from most residents' total student loan debt.

Young told the Post she didn't regret paying off the loans before benefitting from the one-off debt relief.

She said she had already taken advantage of the interest-free payment pauses during the pandemic to pay off the loans. The payment pauses, which were introduced as emergency relief for residents struggling financially during the pandemic, provided an opportunity for some borrowers to pay down their debt.

"The one good thing that came out of COVID was that they paused the interest payments," Young told the Post. "Well, that gave me time to pay back the money."

Between April 2020 and June 2022, nine million borrowers made student loan payments while the interest on them was paused, a Department of Education spokesperson told the Washington Post.

Now, some are trying to claw back a portion of their debt in order to have it forgiven. A loophole does allow those who have recently paid off their student loans to apply for a refund and then apply for the loan forgiveness, per The Post, but Young said she won't be doing this.

"My daughter used the money to get the education. She got a degree. I don't really feel like I should even go through the process of trying to take advantage of the relief that they are giving people now," she said.

"I could pay back the money, and it was a blessing that I was able to do it. I was in the position financially that I could pay it back."