Private student loans, by their nature, are already excluded from all federal student loan relief programs, including federal student loan forgiveness and income-driven repayment plan programs. But newer student loan relief enacted during the last two years have continued to exclude private student loan borrowers. This includes the national pause on student loan payments and interest effective since March 2020, as well as the new expanded relief under existing student loan forgiveness programs recently announced by the Biden administration.
Private student loans haven’t been covered by the recent student loan initiatives for several reasons. Private loans weren’t included in the student loan relief provisions of the CARES Act — legislation passed by Congress in 2020 in response to the pandemic; further extensions of that relief through executive action by former President Trump and President Biden were restricted due to that original legislative text. And unrelated additional initiatives by President Biden to expand relief under key federal student loan programs have been similarly limited by earlier federal legislation previously passed by Congress.
