The student-loan forgiveness application is officially live, and your debt relief is now being processed

• Biden officially launched the application site for student-loan forgiveness on Monday.
• This means the applications will now be processed following a beta testing period.

Student-loan borrowers can now officially apply for President Joe Biden's one-time debt relief.

On Monday, Biden announced that the site to apply for student-loan forgiveness is officially live, following a beta test of the website conducted over the weekend. This means that the Education Department will begin processing applications as borrowers apply for up to $20,000 in debt relief through a form on studentaid.gov that requires just basic information, like a borrower's name, email address, and Social Security number.

"It landed and handled more than 8 million applications without a glitch or any difficulty," Biden said during Monday remarks on the beta test. "We had over 10,000 people contact the White House and either send us letters or calls thanking us, and it means more than 8 million Americans are starting this week on their way to receiving life changing relief that they're looking for."

"Starting today, millions more are going to have the opportunity to do it, as well," Biden added.

Biden said his administration will work to roll out the relief "as smoothly as possible," and borrowers who submitted forms over the weekend during the beta testing period do not need to reapply.

These are the federal loans that are eligible for relief, per the department:

• Undergraduate loans
• Graduate loans
• Spousal loans
• And parent PLUS and grad PLUS loans.

Borrowers with private loans, including those under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, are not included in this relief, though the department said it is continuing to assess ways to get other forms of relief to those groups.

The department recommends borrowers apply before mid-November to get the relief into their accounts before payments resume early next year, and student-loan companies will notify borrowers once the relief is processed. Amid this implementation process, Biden's debt relief is facing legal challenges from a number of conservative groups seeking to block the policy, with borrowers waiting for a decision from a federal judge who heard arguments last week.

During his remarks, Biden maintained he has the legal standing to enact this broad debt relief and he called Republican pushback "wrong and hypocritical" during his remarks.

"I will never apologize for helping working Americans and middle class people as they recover from the pandemic," Biden said. "Especially not the same Republicans who voted for a $2 trillion tax cut in the last administration that mainly benefited the wealthiest Americans, the largest corporations, and didn't pay for a penny and have racked up the deficit."

With regards to GOP criticism on the cost of his relief, Biden noted that payments are resuming in January 2023, which "means billions of dollars a year will start coming into the US Treasury."