Biden forgives another $4.5B in student debt for 60,000 public service workers
Three weeks before the election, Pres. Biden’s latest debt relief effort brings his total loan forgiveness to over $175 billion for more than 4.8 million Americans, as his massive SAVE student loan program remains tied up in courts.
While his massive SAVE student loan plan remains on hold in the courts – and three weeks before the election, President Biden has marked a new milestone by cancelling another $4.5 billion in additional student loan relief for over 60,000 borrowers across the country who work in public service, the White House announced on Thursday.
This relief, which is the result of significant fixes that the Administration has made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program, brings the total loan forgiveness approved by the Administration to over $175 billion for more than 4.8 million Americans, which includes $74 billion for over one million borrowers through PSLF.
This unprecedented milestone is part of the Administration’s efforts to provide relief to as many borrowers as possible across the country before President Biden leaves office in January. Before he took office, only 7,000 public servants had ever received debt relief through PSLF.
A separate Biden student loan initiative, the Savings on a Valuable Education (SAVE) forgiveness program for more than 40 million people, remains on hold, after a federal judge in Missouri blocked the plan in October, just one day after a judge in Georgia gave approval to go forward. Previously, the Supreme Court denied a request from Pres. Biden to bypass lawsuit challenges that were making their way through the courts.
The PSLF program, which was created in 2007, “was so riddled by dysfunction that just 7,000 Americans ever qualified and countless public servants were trapped making payments on debts that should have been forgiven,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “From Day One, the Biden-Harris administration made fixing this broken program a top priority, and today, I’m tremendously proud that over one million teachers, nurses, social workers, veterans, and other public servants have received life-changing loan forgiveness.”
The PSLF program supports public servants by forgiving the remaining student loan balance for those who make the required 120 qualifying monthly payments. This relief includes both borrowers who benefitted from the Biden-Harris Administration’s limited PSLF waiver, a temporary opportunity that ended in October 2022, as well as from regulatory improvements made to the program during this Administration.
As of July 1, 2024, the PSLF Program is now fully managed by the Department through StudentAid.gov, rather than by a single, specialty loan servicer. That means that, for the first time, borrowers can now manage all aspects of their PSLF journey on StudentAid.gov, including submitting their PSLF form and tracking their progress toward forgiveness. These updates simplified the process for borrowers and will provide faster processing of PSLF forms.
Related: Biden’s latest student loan cancellation plan faces yet another setback
To encourage people to take advantage of the PSLF program, the Department of Education will send emails from President Biden to public servants who have received PSLF encouraging them to share their stories, and the Administration will share information about PSLF with federal employees.
The Department of Education is also reaching out to governors and mayors across the country to encourage state and local public service workers to take advantage of the PSLF program.
Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris will continue the efforts of Pres. Biden to “relieve the burden of student debt,” she said in a White House statement, while Republican candidate Donald Trump has criticized the administration’s push to forgive student debt.