The Biden administration announced the cancellation of the debt for 74,000 students, valued at $5 billion to the public. Following this measure, the president has cancelled debt for 3.7 million people through different actions to circumvent a Supreme Court ruling last year that overturned one of the main measures of his term.
This action will particularly help community college borrowers, low-income borrowers, and those struggling to repay their loans. pic.twitter.com/trhSd7WV5i
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 18, 2024
Biden announces he will use ‘every tool’ at his disposal to continue canceling debt
In a statement, the president emphasized the importance of this measure, a personal effort of his, and stressed that he "won’t back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need to reach their dreams":
From Day One of my Administration, I vowed to improve the student loan system so that a higher education provides Americans with opportunity and prosperity – not unmanageable burdens of student loan debt. I won’t back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need to reach their dreams.
44,000 public workers with 10 years of service benefited
According to the White House, "Of the 74,000 borrowers approved for relief today, nearly 44,000 of them are teachers, nurses, firefighters and other individuals who earned forgiveness after 10 years of public service, and close to 30,000 of them are people who have been repaying their loans for at least 20 years but never got the relief they earned through income-driven repayment plans. “My Administration is 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," he said.
Biden also indicated to the Supreme Court that he will continue to seek ways to circumvent the 2023 ruling blocking his debt forgiveness order: "in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision on our student debt relief plan, we are continuing to pursue an alternative path to deliver student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible as quickly as possible.”
Department of Education talks about ‘fixing’ the student loan system
The Department of Education also issued a press release supplementing and detailing the President's announcement. The statement explained that “these discharges are the result of fixes made by the Administration to income-driven repayment (IDR) forgiveness and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, insisted on the Executive's commitment to “fix” the student loan system, noting that "beyond the relief under IDR and PSLF, the Biden-Harris Administration has also approved: $11.7 billion for almost 513,000 borrowers with a total and permanent disability and $22.5 billion for more than 1.3 million borrowers who were cheated by their schools, saw their institutions precipitously close, or are covered by related court settlements."
Our public servants deserve better - that's why we're fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. If you:
✅Have 10 years or more of service
✅Have made 10 years of repayment towards your federal student loans
All of your college student loans can be forgiven.— Secretary Miguel Cardona (@SecCardona) January 18, 2024
