• The Education Department told borrowers in an email they are not required to resume payments in January.
  • Before Thanksgiving, the department announced another extension of the payment pause.
  • The pause will go through June 30, 2023, or whenever litigation is resolved, whichever comes first.

President Joe Biden's Education Department doesn't want you to pay off your student debt in January.

On Wednesday, the department sent an email to federal borrowers reminding them that the student-loan payment pause has been extended beyond December 31 — either through June 30, or until the lawsuits challenging the broad debt relief are resolved, whichever comes first.

Since Biden announced up to $20,000 in student-debt relief for federal borrowers making under $125,000 a year, two courts have so far ruled the implementation of the plan should be put on pause in response to two separate lawsuits. Since mid-October, the Biden administration has stopped accepting new applications for student-debt relief, and after the Supreme Court agreed to take on the cases in February, the department announced an extension of the payment pause.

"You will NOT have to make your loan payments that would have been restarted in January," the department wrote in the email reviewed by Insider.

"And while litigation is preventing us from providing the relief needed to avoid these harms, we don't think it is right to ask borrowers to pay on loans they wouldn't have to pay were it not for the lawsuits challenging the program," the email continued. "Millions of borrowers would be making payments they may not owe, or payments that are higher than they should be, under the Biden-Harris debt relief plan. That's not fair."

On February 28, the Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments on the two separate lawsuits that have blocked the relief. One of them, filed by six Republican-led states, argued the debt relief would hurt their states' tax revenues, and the other lawsuit was filed by two student-loan borrowers who sued because they did not qualify for the full $20,000 amount of relief.

A primary argument both of the lawsuits stood behind was that Biden was overstepping his authority to cancel student debt by using the HEROES Act of 2003, which gives the Education Secretary the ability to waive or modify student-loan balances in connection with a national emergency, like COVID-19. 

Those lawsuits, along with some Republican lawmakers, said such broad relief would require Congressional approval, while Biden's administration has maintained it has the authority to use that law to ensure Americans are not leaving the pandemic worse off than when they started.

Still, even with the extension of the payment pause, Biden's administration has not indicated if it will pursue any alternative routes to relief, so there's a chance borrowers could resume payments without a reduction to their balances should the Supreme Court rule the plan illegal.