Biden’s new student debt forgiveness plan targets 4 types of borrowers
More details were announced last week on Pres. Biden’s new student loan forgiveness plan, which aims to cancel some or all student debt for specific types of borrowers, like those whose balances exceed what they originally owed.
As borrowers have begun repaying their student loans after a three-year pandemic pause, the Biden administration continues to recalibrate its efforts to provide student loan relief after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down its initial proposal. Earlier this week, it unveiled details of its latest plan, which targets four groups of borrowers.
“President Biden and I are committed to helping borrowers who’ve been failed by our country’s broken and unaffordable student loan system,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said. “These draft proposals would build on the historic $127 billion in loan forgiveness the Biden-Harris administration has already approved for nearly 3.6 million borrowers. We are fighting to ensure that student debt does not stand in the way of opportunity or prevent borrowers from realizing the benefits of their higher education.”
Although full details may be months away, the department said it wants to cancel some or all student debt for:
- Borrowers whose balances exceed what they originally owed;
- Those who have loans that entered repayment 25 or more years ago;
- Those who used loans to attend career-training programs that led to “unreasonable” debt loads or insufficient earnings; and
- Those who are eligible for other loan forgiveness programs but did not apply.
These categories are aimed at “providing relief to as many borrowers as possible where the system has failed,” said Robert Gordon, deputy director for economic mobility for the White House Domestic Policy Council. The Education Department said it also wants to cancel debts owed by borrowers facing a “financial hardship,” but it has not yet developed proposals to define what that means.
The draft proposals, which will be presented to a federal rulemaking committee, reflect the administration’s strategy of breaking down its next student debt relief program into discrete populations of borrowers rather than its previous across-the-board program. It’s not yet clear if the total number of borrowers who would qualify under the draft proposals is greater or less than the roughly 40 million Americans who were estimated to be eligible for up to $10,000 or $20,000 of debt relief under the previous plan.
Related: A brand new (grand scale) Biden student loan forgiveness plan is in the works
After the Supreme Court struck down that program, which was based on pandemic-related emergency powers, Biden quickly announced that his administration would craft a new relief program using a different legal authority. Education Department officials have focused on a provision of the Higher Education Act that gives the secretary of education the power to waive federal student loan debts and a separate federal law that governs when agencies can stop collecting on debts they are owed.
The proposed changes are not expected to be finalized until next year and could face legal challenges.