Decision time for Texans with student loan debt

Americans were originally scheduled to begin repaying their student loans this week after a nearly two-year pause and 0% interest rates.

• Instead, borrowers are still lingering in repayment purgatory.

Why it matters: More than half of Texas students in their fourth year of college carry student debt, owing an average of $23,584, per a September report by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

• Millennials are especially impacted, with many delaying milestones like homebuying or having children.
• Overall, Texans received $11 billion in student financial aid during fiscal year 2020.

Catch up quick: President Biden announced in December that payments wouldn't resume until May 1, extending the 2020 hiatus a fifth time amid the onset of the Omicron variant.

• This was despite originally labeling the previous moratorium the "final extension."

Zoom in: Texas' Black and Hispanic students borrow on average $7,124 and $453 more than their white peers, respectively, while Asian students borrow $3,155 less, per a 2019 Southern Methodist University study.

What's next:

Our take: Sure, this is a good time to pay off high-interest debt that isn't paused, like private student loans or credit cards.

But if student loans are your primary, looming financial burden, it's easy to feel torn between two uncertain options:

• Do you chip away at the balance while interest rates are on hold to make a big dent and risk spending money you could have saved or invested?
• Or do you build your savings and cling to the hope of student loan forgiveness, such as the $10,000 that Biden proposed on the campaign trail?