About 22 million people have applied for student loan forgiveness, Biden said, as GOP states and lawsuits continue to rush to block the program

• Applications for student-loan forgiveness went live on October 14.
• Since then, around 22 million borrowers have applied, President Joe Biden said on Friday.

About 22 million people have applied for student-loan forgiveness within a week after applications went live, President Joe Biden said on Friday, as GOP-led states continue to try to challenge the program.

"In less than a week, close to 22 million people have already given us the information to be considered for this life-changing relief," Biden said during a speech at Delaware State University.

Applications on studentaid.gov for debt relief first went live on October 14, during beta testing for the website.

Around 43 million borrowers are eligible for forgiveness, which offers one-time student-loan forgiveness of up to $20,000 for some borrowers, according to the White House. This means about half of eligible borrowers have already applied for debt cancellation.

"It's about as easy to apply as signing up while hanging out with your friends or at home and watching a movie," Biden said, adding that a majority of people have signed up through their phones.

The timeline for when the loans will be cleared remains up in the air as legal challenges threaten to put a pause on the debt relief.

On Thursday, the Biden administration was handed a temporary win after a federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by six Republican-led states that challenged the program. The suit argued that forgiving the debt would hurt the states' tax revenues.

The states have filed an appeal on the court's decision, asking for a temporary stay on Biden's program by October 22 until a final judgment on the suit is made. If the stay is approved, then the government will have to halt the student-loan forgiveness program.

Still, the Biden administration and hopeful borrowers have seen significant headway against legal challenges.

On Thursday, Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an emergency request from a Wisconsin group to halt Biden's student-debt cancelation program.

There are other lawsuits in the pipeline, however. This week, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, filed a lawsuit against Biden's program, and a federal judge is expected to hold a hearing next week for another legal challenge that was filed by the conservative group Job Creators Network.