Savannah Britt owes about $27,000 on loans she took out to attend college at Rutgers University, a debt she was hoping to see reduced by President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness efforts.

Her payments are currently on hold while courts untangle challenges to the loan forgiveness program. But as the weeks tick down on Biden’s time in office, she could soon face a monthly payment of up to $250.

“With this new administration, the dream is gone. It’s shot,” said Britt, 30, who runs her own communications agency. “I was hopeful before Tuesday. I was waiting out the process. Even my mom has a loan that she took out to support me. She owes about $18,000, and she was in the process of it being forgiven, but it’s at a standstill.”

President-elect Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans have criticized Biden’s loan forgiveness efforts, and lawsuits by GOP-led states have held up plans for widespread debt cancellation. Trump has not said what he would do on loan forgiveness, leaving millions of borrowers facing uncertainty over their personal finances.

The economy was an important issue in the election, helping to propel Trump to victory. But for borrowers, concerns about their finances extend beyond inflation to include their student debt, said Persis Yu, managing counsel for the Student Borrower Protection Center.

“That’s a big part of what is making life unaffordable for them is this burden of expenses that they can’t seem to get out from under,” Yu said.

Here are some facts to keep in mind as the decisions soon to be made regarding School Loan Forgiveness get decided_-

• Student loan cancellation was not a focus of the campaign for either Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris, who steered clear of the issue at her political events.
• Biden promised the student loan cancellation program during his run for the presidency. From its launch, Biden’s loan forgiveness faced relentless pushback from opponents who said it heaped advantage on elites and came at the expense of those who repaid their loans or did not attend college.
• Biden’s first plan to cancel up to $20,000 for millions of people was blocked by the Supreme Court last year.
• A second, narrower plan has been halted by a federal judge after Republican-led states sued.
• A separate policy intended to lower loan payments for struggling borrowers has been paused by a judge, also after Republican-controlled states challenged it.
• Three in 10 U.S. adults said they approved of how Biden had handlined student loan debt, according to a poll this spring from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
• Four in 10 disapproved. The others were neutral or didn’t know enough to say.
• Project 2025, the blueprint for a hard-right turn in American government that aligns with some Trump priorities, calls for getting the federal government out of the student loan business.
• Trump has pledged to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, which manages the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio. It’s unclear which entity, if any, would take that responsibility over.

“A lot of the cancellation that we saw in the last couple of years was because the Biden administration was committed to making the programs that are actually enshrined in law work for people,” Yu said.

In her role as managing director for Student Debt Crisis Center, Calazans said she has been telling people to stay up to date on developments by using the loan simulator on the Federal Student Aid website and reading updated information on forgiveness qualifications and repayment programs.

“There’s a lot of confusion about student loans,” Calazans said, and not just among young people. “We’re seeing a lot of parents take out more debt for their children to be able to go to school. We’re seeing older folks go back to school and having to take out loans as well.”

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By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY Associated Press

Associated Press education writer Collin Binkley in Washington, D.C.. contributed to this report.