The Department of Education rolled out a beta version of its student loan relief website in preparation for the site’s official launch later this month.
Originally slated for an early October launch, the test site was launched Friday after the Biden Administration’s promise in August to forgive $10,000 of student debt loans for those making less than $125k and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.
Since the announcement, President Biden has said that the working and middle classes will benefit most from the student loan forgiveness program. “Not a dime will go to those in the top 5% income bracket,” he said during a press conference on Monday.
The forgiveness form doesn’t require applicants to log in or provide any documents, making the one-time submission easy to understand and quick to complete. However, many found that the website was quickly overwhelmed and would sometimes crash or invite applicants to “check back soon.”
Issues such as those problems are why the Department of Education chose to launch a beta test of the site before the official version opens to the public. Their technical team will be working over the next few weeks to detect and fix any problems that pop up.
Not everyone is concerned with technical issues, though. For student loan borrowers like USF professor Stephanie Anderson, there is a greater fear of whether the program will actually make a dent in their debt.
“I appreciate the Biden Administration’s effort to reduce our student loan debt, however, when you’re talking about that large amount of money, $10,000 in relief really is not that much,” Anderson said.
Credits
Anchor: Haley Zarcone
Producer: Chris Zingale
Teleprompter: Aziz Turner
Graphics: Alice Barlow
Video Editor: Antonio Delucca
Cameras: Meredith Lamm
Web Editor: Sarah Bennett
Web Managing Editor: Chrisovaladou Pantelis
Graduate Assistant: McKenzie Muskett
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Stephanie Anderson, Wayne Garcia
