It's still unclear if your student debt will be forgiven before payments resume in January — or how your loan company will carry out the relief

President Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan is a big win for millions of borrowers, but it comes with a lot of uncertainty.

As a January payment restart looms, the application for relief has been made available during abeta testing period but is not yet officially live for processing, and multiple lawsuits seek to challenge Biden's move in court, leaving many borrowers and advocates wondering how it will all shake out

Biden is the first president to take action on the student-debt crisis by announcing up to $20,000 in loan forgiveness for borrowers making under $125,000 a year. Most borrowers will have to apply through a form that will be live in October.

The Education Department thinks there will be a lot of traffic to the website when the form goes live, but administration officials think the process will go smoothly.

We have been working hard because we know the interest and the potential demand. An official told reporters during a Tuesday press call that they were using all their best practices to handle the volume. As we communicate to borrowers, this is going to be available through December of 2023, and that is a set period of time including by which new people can apply.

Payments will resume in January of next year after being on hold for over two years during the Pandemic. When announcing the debt relief, Biden said that the extension of the payment pause would be the final one and that the application for relief would go live in October.

The administration backed off from the "early" October messaging after a number of conservative lawsuits tried to stop the relief. The White House said that the form will be available in October and that the application will be simple.

The borrowers are waiting for a judge to rule on a lawsuit filed by six Republican-led states, in which their attorneys argued the relief will hurt their states' revenues.

While the Education Department recommends borrowers submit their applications by mid-November so the relief can hit their accounts before payments resume, it remains to be seen how effective student loan companies will be in implementing the relief.

Student debt is only as effective as its implementation, according to Minnesota Rep.

The application process needs to be smooth and simple. The Administration needs to quickly and efficiently implement this relief so that everyone can get it. There needs to be clear communication with borrowers so they don't have to worry about how much they're going to repay.

Ensuring that the loan servicers don't engage in deceptive or illegal behavior is one of the concerns. Our goal is to get everyone the relief they are entitled to.

Louise Seamster, a sociologist at the University of Iowa, told Insider that she hopes the process will go smoothly, but she wants the department to consider past issues with loan servicers as reasons to further extend the payment.

Seamster wants the Department of Education to be aware of any potential challenges given the history of servicers in administering student debt.

She said that given the trajectory of loan servicers up to this point, it's reasonable to be concerned about how well cancellation will be administered.

Loan companies have had past issues with implementing relief

Lawmakers were concerned about how effective the forgiveness would be following Biden's announcement. The Democrat from Minnesota has often called for quick implementation. Virginia Foxx, the top Republican on the House Education Committee, wrote in a letter that the relief should be a comprehensive, smooth operation that follows careful planning and thoughtful consideration about all aspects of an initiative.

These concerns have been around for a long time. The program that was supposed to forgive student debt for public servants after ten years of payments was denied 98% of the time when Biden took office, and the program is set to expire on October 31. Income-driven repayment plans, which are intended to give borrowers affordable monthly payments with the promise of loan forgiveness after at least 20 years, had the same issue as loan companies failing to track payments.

The Biden administration is pushing an already strained system to the point of collapse, according to Foxx.

"Democrats are making the federal student loan program worse by failing to restart repayments, issuing adequate guidance to servicers, and providing clarity to over 40 million borrowers," she said. I don't think much will change. There should be more of the same from the Biden administration.

Seamster said that the history of carrying out targeted relief raises concerns about loan companies' ability to process new forms, implement Biden's broad relief, and resume payments in a few months.

Seamster said that loan servicers have not shown that they have the ability to manage all the things happening at the same time.

The Education Department has not indicated if it will further extend the payment pause, and all borrowers can do is take Biden's word that the process will be smooth, and wait to see if loan companies will live up to expectations