Biden Loan Forgiveness Drives Millions to Student Aid Site

When President Joe Biden announced a student loan forgiveness plan, millions of potentially eligible students and former students flocked to the government website where they could learn more.

Key takeaways

• The studentaid.gov website for student loans attracted 5.9 million visits on August 24, the day President Biden announced it would also be the site to apply for student loan forgiveness.
• That web traffic level is far beyond the norm for that site, even during a back-to-school period. Traffic was in the range of 300,000 to under 700,000 daily visits in August 2021.

5.9 million visits on the day of the announcement

The website, which in addition to providing access to student loans has now added a form to apply for loan forgiveness, saw 5.9 million visits on the day of the announcement and millions more in the days since. On August 27, the site drew 1.7 million visits from 1.3 million unique visitors.

Traffic to the website had already begun to ramp up in anticipation of the announcement throughout the month of August, approaching 1 million visits by more than 806,000 unique visitors on August 23.

Far beyond last year’s back-to-school season traffic

The back-to-school period might be an elevated time for student loan traffic every year, but in August of 2021, the site saw in the range of 300,000 to a little less than 700,000 daily visits.

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Methodology

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Image by 3D Animation Production Company from Pixabay

by David F. Carr

David covers social media, digital advertising, and generative AI. With a background in web trends since the 1990s, he’s also the author of "Social Collaboration for Dummies".