President Joe Biden has announced an additional $5 billion in debt cancelation for some 74,000 student loan borrowers, many of whom worked in public sector jobs for over a decade.
Joe Biden Approves Another Round of Student Loan Cancelation: Who Qualifies?
According to NBC News, Joe Biden announced on Friday that 44,000 approved borrowers were having their education debt canceled after 10 years of public service. In a statement, the president noted that these borrowers include teachers, nurses, and firefighters.
On the other hand, the remaining nearly 30,000 borrowers, Biden said, have been making payments on their loans for at least 20 years but did not get relief through income-driven repayment plans.
The announcement is the latest in a series of loan forgiveness actions by the Biden administration after the Supreme Court struck down the president's much broader student loan relief plan last year. Since the ruling, the administration has rolled out a series of smaller relief programs.
On Friday, Biden said his administration "was able to deliver relief to these borrowers - and millions more - because of fixes we made to broken student loan programs that were preventing borrowers from getting relief they were entitled to under the law."
The White House said this brings the total number of people who had their debt canceled under the Biden administration to 3.7 million.
Joe Biden's Latest Round of Student Loan Forgiveness
According to the Department of Education (DOE), the latest round of student loan forgiveness is broken down into the following categories:
- $1.7 billion for 29,700 borrowers through administrative adjustments to income-driven repayment (IDR) payment counts that have brought borrowers closer to forgiveness and address longstanding concerns with the misuse of forbearance by loan servicers. According to the DOE, the latest move brings to $45.7 billion in IDR relief for 930,500 borrowers overall.
- $3.2 billion for 43,900 borrowers through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. This includes borrowers who have benefitted from the Biden administration's limited PSLF waiver and regulatory improvements made to the program. Total relief through PSLF is now $56.7 billion for 793,400 borrowers since October 2021.
Friday's announcement follows Biden's action last week for student loan borrowers enrolled in the new income-driven repayment plan called SAVE.
Borrowers enrolled in SAVE who received less than $12,000 in federal loans and have been making payments for at least 10 years will have their remaining student debt canceled in February.
Those who want to apply for student loan relief can find additional information at studentaid.gov and sign up for the SAVE plan at StudentAid.gov/save.
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