OAN’s James Meyers
8:24 AM – Wednesday, May 22, 2024
The Biden administration announced another mammoth round of student debt handouts on Wednesday, with $7.7 billion going toward clearing debt for over 160,000 student borrowers.
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The latest round of handouts falls into three categories of borrowers: people receiving Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), people signed up for President Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan who are also eligible for its shortened time-to-forgiveness benefit and people receiving forgiveness on income-driven repayment (IDR) as a result of fixes made by the administration.
The handouts includes $5.2 billion for 66,900 borrowers through fixes to PSFL and $613 million for 54,300 borrowers through the SAVE Plan that will go to borrowers enrolled in the SAVE Plan who had smaller loans for their postsecondary studies.
Additionally, another $1.9 billion will go to 39,200 borrowers through administrative adjustments to IDR payment counts, according to the Department of Education (DOE).
Meanwhile, with the latest announcement by the Biden administration it has cleared a total of $167 billion in student loan debt for $4.75 million Americans, according to the DOE.
“The Biden-Harris Administration remains persistent about our efforts to bring student debt relief to millions more across the country, and this announcement proves it,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in the release. “One out of every 10 federal student loan borrowers approved for debt relief means one out of every 10 borrowers now has financial breathing room and a burden lifted.”
Furthermore, the DOE announced an update for the timing of the payment count adjustment, claiming that the fix ensures borrowers receive credit for the headway they made toward IDR forgiveness and PSFL. Students now have until June 30th to apply to consolidate.
“Another 160,000 borrowers and their families will get some much-needed relief thanks to the continued efforts [of] the Biden-Harris Administration to fix the broken student loan system,” Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said. “We congratulate those borrowers on their due forgiveness and we will continue to work to deliver relief to others.”
The Biden administration has also tried to clear more student debt by securing a $900 increase to the maximum Pell Grant and finalizing new rules to protect borrowers from “career programs that leave graduates with unaffordable debts or insufficient earnings.”
“Today’s announcement comes on top of the significant progress we’ve made for students and borrowers over the past three years,” Biden said in a statement.
“That includes providing the largest increases to the maximum Pell Grant in over a decade; fixing Public Service Loan Forgiveness so teachers, nurses, police officers, and other public service workers get the relief they are entitled to under the law; and holding colleges accountable for taking advantage of students and families. And last month, I laid out my Administration’s new plans that would cancel student debt for more than 30 million Americans when combined with everything we’ve done so far.”
“From day one of my Administration, I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” he continued. “I will never stop working to cancel student debt – no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us.”
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration went over its authority in 2022 when it announced it would cancel up to $400 billion in student loans.
Republican states have responded to the student loan forgiveness measures by filing lawsuits challenging those initiatives.
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