"The payment pause has been a lifeline that allowed millions of Americans to focus on their families, health, and finances instead of student loans during the national emergency," said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. "As our nation’s economy continues to recover from a deep hole, this final extension will give students and borrowers the time they need to plan for restart and ensure a smooth pathway back to repayment. It is the Department’s priority to support students and borrowers during this transition and ensure they have the resources they need to access affordable, high quality higher education."

Borrowers will likely need assistance in resuming payments, as a poll from June found that a full 90 percent of borrowers did not expect be ready to resume payments this autumn; 65 percent said they'd be ready by September 2022 at the earliest. Eighty percent of the respondent said that they're depending on the money they're saving from the payment pause, and 75 percent said that the payment pause is critical to their financial well being. One third of the borrowers said that resuming payments would eat up about a quarter of their incomes, and 43 percent reported their financial condition as  "poor" or "very poor," compared to 26 percent prior to March 2020.

As of the beginning of this year, there is approximately $1.7 trillion in outstanding student debt. President Biden previously pledged to forgive $10,000 of every borrower's federal student debt, but there seems to have been little action on this front so far, as the federal government has discharged only about $2.8 billion worth this year.