Student loan relief deadline approaching for 300,000 California borrowers

By Mikhail Zinshteyn (CALMATTERS) – As many as 300,000 Californians have until June 30 to take advantage of a one-time offer to qualify for faster student loan forgiveness, lower monthly payments or outright forgiveness for federal loans borrowed before 2010. The U.S. Department of Education’s June 30 deadline is a big deal because borrowers who submit their applications would become eligible to receive credit for past years of repayment that previously didn’t qualify for student loan forgiveness. The department’s one-time “adjustment” will largely help borrowers who took out federal student loans before 2010 called Federal Family Education Loans — as well as borrowers with two other types of loans. Why is the department doing this? To “remedy years of administrative failures that effectively denied the promise of loan forgiveness to certain borrowers,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a 2022 press release. The deadline for this remedy has been extended several times, but student loan advocates believe June 30 will be the final opportunity for this one-time benefit. Nationally, about half of borrowers 60 and older have been repaying their student loans for more than 15 years, a key reason why debt among this population has skyrocketed. By May, more...