At the start of this month, millions of Americans faced a sort of rude awakening.

Well now after three odd years of a COVID-19 pandemic era freeze, student loan borrowers

are going to have to start repaying again.

Jeremy Barrow Wolf is a reporter for Higher Ed Dive.

It's his job to follow the tug of war over student loan debt in Washington.

Student loan payments were originally paused under the Trump administration back in March 2020,

but now interest is accruing again and it's time to pay up.

Have you spoken to anyone who is suddenly faced with a skyrocketing bill?

Oh absolutely, my own partner, he is graduate loans and is now facing a lot of different

lifestyle changes just based on these student loans restarting.

What plans are they making to deal with the sudden financial hit?

Well, you know, he was balancing a sort of a COVID-19 era rent and that raised and now he's

dealing with a hundred dollar extra bill every month. So we're working through, you know,

well, we're definitely going to be cutting down on that takeout. We're going to have to be

potentially looking for new work and it's a lot and his story is echoed throughout the country.

There are a lot of borrowers who are even far worse financial streets than him.

People scrambling to come up with the money to pay off their debts might be wondering.

Wasn't the Biden administration supposed to fix this by now?

Back in August of last year, President Biden announced a plan to cancel up to $430 billion

in student loan debt. Critics immediately sued. And this June, the case went before the supreme court.

Somewhat predictably, the conservative majority ruled no dice.

The court has struck down a Biden administration program that would have offered individual borrowers

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