In roughly two months, millions of consumers who borrowed to take out federal student loans will need to dig a little deeper into their pockets to cover another bill for $150 to $300 a month or maybe even more, depending on what they owe, according to a commentary in the Detroit Free Press. Right now, many consumers should be calculating how they're going to hand over more money in 2023 after the payment pause on most federal student loans ends in December. Payments — which have not been required for nearly three years — are scheduled to resume in January. For nearly three years, millions of borrowers with federal student loans have had one less bill to pay each month. They've seen repeated extensions granted since the moratorium on student loan payments began in March 2020 as part of pandemic-related relief efforts. Could another such extension take place? Maybe but it's not in the cards yet. The Biden administration announced an ambitious but controversial federal student loan forgiveness program in late August. A simple online application was officially launched Oct. 17 by the U.S. Department of Education at its website StudentAid.gov. But the massive student loan forgiveness program was quickly put on hold after a temporary stay was issued by a federal appeals court on Oct. 21.
