This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Mary El Cigara.

Today on the show we are talking about student loans. If you have them, you've probably heard that the Biden administration just created this student debt relief program.

People with student loans can apply to have up to $20,000 of their debt erased. Up until recently though, it wasn't clear if certain loans qualified and what it would take to apply.

But the federal government just opened the application and we have answers to hopefully all of your questions about it.

By the way, if you do have federal student loans, it's a good idea to figure this out soon.

Because starting January 1st, you will have to start paying them again. The government paused payments and interest because of the pandemic.

With me to help us understand all of this, our query-turner and Sequoia Corillo who cover education for NPR.

A U2. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Alright, so tell me about this application. How long does it actually take to do this?

So actually the first person that I know that did this application was my roommate when they first sent out the beta version of the application.

And she told me it took like two minutes.

I initially opened the link just to see what information they needed for me and found out it was less than 20 fields.

My Uber was longer than it took for me to submit the application. It's actually way less than 20 fields.

It's like half a dozen data points. It's super straightforward. Just your name, your date of birth, social security number, phone, email.

There is one box that borrowers have to check to certify under penalty of per dream that they meet the program's income requirements, which is $125,000 for individuals or 250,000 for couples.

And this is important. It can be for either 2020 or 2021. If you are below that income threshold for either year, you qualify for this forgiveness.

But there's no special login or anything and you don't have to upload anything.

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All right. So you filed the application and then what happens?

A few things. After you submit it, borrowers should get a simple email confirmation, not saying that they've been accepted, just saying, hey, we got it.

It's time to wait. Then the department is going to verify your eligibility using its internal federal database. So for borrowers whose government records show they were maybe close to the income limit, which again is $125,000 per individual.

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