President Biden Announces $9 Billion for Student Debt Relief and Student Debt Cancelation as Payments Resume

An Additional 125,000 Americans Approved for Student Debt Relief and Student Debt Cancelation

Student debt relief has been one of the goals of President Biden since the outset of his Administration. The Biden-Harris team has undertaken remarkable measures to fix the flawed student loan system.

One of the Biden-Harris Administration’s objectives is to make the U.S. higher education more economically feasible and affordable to a broader spectrum of Americans.

Today, as a part of the Student Loan Forgiveness initiative, President Biden is declaring that an additional 125,000 Americans have received approval for Student Debt Relief and Student Debt Cancelation.

This is welcome news to all approved borrowers as the student loan repayments resumed on October 1st, after more than three years of pandemic-driven pause.

This is welcome news to all approved borrowers as the student loan repayments resumed on October 1st, after more than three years pandemic-driven pause. More than 28 million student loan borrowers will be required to start making payments for the first time since the accounts were frozen in March, 2020 to help people due to Covid-19 pandemic.

The total amount approved for this round of Student Loan Forgiveness is $9 billion. This debt relief is made possible through fixes made to the existing Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Specifically this round of the student debt relief includes canceling the student debt for borrowers with total and permanent disabilities.

Who are the beneficiaries of this round of student loan forgiveness?

The White House said the $9 billion in today’s debt forgiveness is allocated among the following student loan borrowers:

• $5.2 billion in additional debt relief for 53,000 borrowers under Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs.

• Nearly $2.8 billion in new debt relief for nearly 51,000 borrowers through fixes to income-driven repayment. These are borrowers who made 20 years or more of payments but never got the relief they were entitled to.

• $1.2 billion for nearly 22,000 borrowers who have a total or permanent disability who have been identified and approved for discharge through a data match with the Social Security Administration.

In addition, the Department of Education has released state-specific breakdowns of borrowers identified for forgiveness under the Income-Driven Repayment Direct-to-Discharge Account Adjustment plan. You can view the state-specific borrowers in the following map.

The $9 Billion Student Debt Relief adds to the recently introduced SAVE – the most affordable student loan repayment plan. SAVE reduces the monthly payments of many student loan borrowers to as low as $0 and prevents balances from ballooning due to unpaid interest.

Furthermore, the Biden Administration secured the most significant increase in Pell Grants in a decade. It implemented new regulations to safeguard borrowers from career programs that lead to unmanageable debts or inadequate earnings.

Following a Supreme Court decision on the original student debt relief plan, President Biden unveiled and started pursuing an alternative route to debt relief through negotiated rulemaking under the Higher Education Act.

Up to now, the Biden-Harris Administration has authorized $127 billion in debt cancellation for nearly 3.6 million borrowers, which includes:

• Nearly $42 billion for almost 855,000 borrowers eligible for forgiveness through income-driven repayment (IDR) by rectifying historical inaccuracies in payment counting.

• Almost $51 billion for 715,000 public servants via Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) programs.$11.7 billion for nearly 513,000 borrowers with total and permanent disabilities.

• $22.5 billion for over 1.3 million borrowers who were victims of school misconduct, institution closures, or are subject to related court settlements