The Biden administration announced Monday it was forgiving student loans for more than 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of individuals impacted by debt relief in President Biden’s term to over 5 million.
The 150,000 new borrowers are made up of 85,000 individuals who were defrauded by their schools, 61,000 people with permanent or total disabilities and 6,100 public service workers.
“Thanks to our tireless and unapologetic efforts to work toward a system that is affordable and accountable to both students and taxpayers, today’s announcement includes additional relief for borrowers misled and cheated by their institutions, borrowers with disabilities, as well as additional loan forgiveness for public servants,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said.
In total, the Biden administration has now spent $183.6 billion to forgive student loans.
Officials with the Biden administration emphasized how helpful the forgiveness has been for everyday Americans ahead President-elect Trump’s inauguration — and the subsequent likely slowdown of federal efforts on student loans.
“Identifying 5 million people for student loan forgiveness means the federal government is finally keeping its promises,” Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said. “People who cannot afford their student loans because they are in public service, have disabilities, were cheated by their college, or who have completed decades of payments are now getting the relief they were promised. These permanent reforms will continue to more and more borrowers every year.”
The record amount of student debt relief by any president was made possible due to a number of changes the administration made to the Borrower Defense program and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program to make it easier for borrowers in these categories to receive forgiveness.
Under PSLF, more than 1 million borrowers have received relief, compared to only 7,000 before the start of the Biden administration.
Officials would not say if this was the last round of relief borrowers could expect before the president leaves office next week.
“Four years ago, President Biden made a promise to fix a broken student loan system. Today, life-changing student debt relief is possible for more than five million borrowers — more than any other administration in history,” Cardona said.
