SPECTRUM LOCAL NEWS — As we gear up to enter the new year, tens of millions of Americans are expecting some relief. President Joe Biden announced last week that he’s extending the pause on student loan payments through May 1. The loan forbearance, which started in March 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, was set to expire on Jan. 31. But because of the omicron variant and intense public pressure, the White House paused student loan payments for an additional three months. Glory Iluyomade, a 27-year-old graduate student at the University of Maryland, works full-time as a project manager at a health care company. She also has a photography business that she runs. Iluyomade is one of about 41 million Americans paying down student loans. While she’s thankful Biden extended a freeze on student loan payments, she still has some concerns. “At some point we’re going to have to pay them. The pursuit right now is getting to a position where I can pay them before, you know, it eats me up, right? So I do think there is a little bit of anxiety,” Iluyomade said. By the time Iluyomade finishes graduate school in about a year and a half, she will have racked up around $36,000 in student debt, a combination of undergraduate and graduate-level loans.