Student loan sites crash after Biden announcement

Surge of interest overwhelms unprepared system

Americans who wanted to know the status of their student loans following Joe Biden’s announcement of long-awaited debt cancellation may have been out of luck, depending on when they logged on.

The announcement by the president on Wednesday that he would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for many borrowers and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients was widely celebrated on social media, though conservatives were predictably enraged by the news. Many supporters of the decision pointed out how student loan debt disproportionately affects minority communitities who, like all Americans, were sold the idea for decades that college provides a ticket to upward financial mobility.

But the Department of Education and other services that work with student borrowers were clearly unprepared for the predictable reaction from thousands of Americans who were understandably confused or interested in what Mr Biden’s decision meant for them.

Just about every major service for student borrowers crashed or was experiencing severe traffic-related problems on Wednesday after the announcement; the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) website was down for many for several hours, and even the Department of Education’s main website was encountering issues throughout the day, according to Down Detector.

The Department of Education did not address any of these outages on its public social media. The Independent has reached out for comment regarding whether the agency took any steps to prepare for the traffic surge.

So was Nelnet, a major service provider for student loan payments. Nelnet was down for many users for much of Wednesday, causing the otherwise obscure company’s name to trend nationally on US Twitter for hours. The company attempted to address the outages, unlike the Department of Education, in a series of tweets directing users to a federally run site with information about student loan payments.

“We apologize Nelnet is experiencing extremely high website and phone traffic. We appreciate your patience. We know you have questions on student loan cancellation. The Department of Education determines eligibility. The best source of information is http://StudentAid.gov/debtrelief,” Nelnet wrote on Twitter.

“As a reminder, given today's student loan cancellation announcement, there's no immediate action needed on your part. You can view information at http://StudentAid.gov/debtrelief,” it continued.

That site, too, was down for many by mid-afternoon.

Mr Biden’s move on Wednesday to cancel some student debt for many Americans is seen as a development that progressives have urged him to take action on for months and came just days before a deadline for a repayment freeze was set to occur.

It follows on the heels of a major deal that saw parts of Mr Biden’s legislative agenda including funding for efforts to fight climate change pass the evenly-divided Senate, and the abatement of rising inflation trends that coupled together have given the president a pair of much-needed wins heading in to November.