Federal student aid website crashes after Biden’s debt handout announcement

The federal government’s student aid website crashed on Wednesday after President Biden announced $20,000 in student loan relief for Pell Grant recipients and $10,000 for other borrowers. 

The site, studentaid.gov, was still down due to “high volumes of visitors” around 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. 

“A lot of people are interested in our website. As a result, some pages may take longer to display than usual. Thank you for your patience,” a message read at the top of the website once a user gets through. 

BIDEN ANNOUNCES STUDENT LOAN HANDOUT AS NATIONAL DEBT SOARS

Down Detector, which monitors outages, was receiving hundreds of reports every 15 minutes starting around noon on Wednesday. 

The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the website on Wednesday. 

Biden announced the student debt plan in the early afternoon on Monday, saying that he is delivering on a campaign “commitment.”

The White House estimates that up to 43 million Americans will receive student debt handouts.

A Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that forgiveness of $10,000 for borrowers who make less than $125,000 will cost around $300 billion for taxpayers. 

The progressive flank of the Democratic Party was pushing for the president to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for each borrower, which would carry a price tag of $980 billion, according to the Penn model.