According to recent data from the office of Federal Student Aid, the amount of total national student loan debt continues to increase. As of December 2022, the total debt level stands at $1.64 trillion, with a total of 43.8 million borrowers. The debt amount represents an increase of $29 billion in the outstanding loan balance over last year. 

At the start of the pandemic, the CARES Act put a student loan repayment pause into effect that has lasted more than three years. Nearly 27 million Direct Loan recipients have benefited from this repayment halt. Also, because of this action, no new borrowers have entered default since the passage of the CARES Act. 

Since President Biden came into office, other tools have been used to forgive student debt. The Department of Education has forgiven the debts of 453,000 borrowers through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) waiver that ended October 2022. Although the limited PSLF waiver period has ended, borrowers are still able to receive forgiveness as long as they submitted their application on time. 

As of August 2022, the total student loan relief amount under the Biden Administration was nearly $32 billion. This relief for borrowers was the result of several actions taken by the Administration, including total and permanent disability discharge, closed school discharge, and borrower defense to repayment, in addition to the PSLF forgiveness.