If you want to opt out of Biden's student-loan forgiveness, you have less than a month to do so. Here's how.
- The Education Department is notifying borrowers who are automatically eligible for debt relief.
- Around 8 million borrowers will receive that notice, but some of them might choose to opt out.
Long awaited student-loan forgiveness is finally coming to fruition — but some borrowers may not want to take part in the relief.
On Monday, President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona officially launched the application site for student-loan forgiveness. It's a very simple form — borrowers need to set aside just five minutes to fill out their names, email address, and Social Security numbers, and the Education Department will take processing the relief from there.
But as The Washington Post first reported on Tuesday, about 8 million borrowers won't even be required to fill out that form. If the department has their income information already on file, either through the FAFSA form or from information used to enroll in income-driven repayment plans, it will notify borrowers that their relief will be automatically processed and they will not need to apply for it themselves. But if they would like to submit a form to get relief sooner, they are welcome to do so.
Some borrowers may not want to receive that relief, though, because of concerns about state tax liability or other reasons. If you are one of those borrowers, you have until November 14 to opt out the process. Here's how you would do that, according to Federal Student Aid:
- Determine who your student-loan servicer is by logging into studentaid.gov, selecting "My Aid," and then selecting "View loan servicer details."
- Contact your servicer by phone or email and tell them you do not want to receive federal student-loan relief. Contact information for servicers can be found here.
- If you have multiple servicers, you only need to tell one of them that you wish to opt out.
- If you opt out now but later change your mind before December 2023, you can still submit an application at this site.
For all other borrowers, the Education Department recommends they submit their applications by mid-November so the relief is accounted for before payments resume in January.