Nearly $6 Billion in Student Loan Debt Canceled for Public Servants
The Biden Administration canceled an additional $5.8 billion in student loan debt for public servants. Some 77,700 borrowers working in public service jobs including teachers, firefighters, and nurses, will see their debt forgiven in this latest changes made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.
“From day one of my Administration, I promised to fix broken student loan programs and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity. I won’t back down from using every tool at my disposal to deliver student debt relief to more Americans, and build an economy from the middle out and bottom up,” President Biden said in a statement.
In addition, the president will email an additional 380,000 borrowers, telling them they are on track to have their loans forgiven within the next year or two if they keep up the payments and continue working in public service jobs.
PSLF Program
PSLF makes public servants eligible for debt cancellation after making ten years of monthly payments.
The Biden Administration has been tweaking the program to expand eligibility and improve its functionality. Prior to reforms in 2021, only 7,000 public servants had their loans forgiven under the program.
The expansion includes allowing certain borrowers to be credited for past payments that did not otherwise qualify. The administration is also conducting a recount of past payments to account for “past administrative failures” with the goal of helping borrowers who were inappropriately steered by their loan servicing company into a period where they stopped making payments.
“With this announcement, the Biden-Harris Administration is showing how we’re taking further steps not only to fix those trap doors, but also to expand opportunity to many more Americans,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “Today, more than 100 times more borrowers are eligible for PSLF than there were at the beginning of the Administration.”
The administration uses PSLF to forgive loans after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s broader $400 billion student loan forgiveness program.
GOP Opposition
Not everyone thinks student loan forgiveness is a good idea. Congressional Republicans introduced the College Cost Reduction Act to repeal borrower friendly regulations, remake the way student loans are paid, and prohibit additional student loan forgiveness.
“The College Cost Reduction Act is the vehicle through which much-needed accountability, transparency, and affordability measures can be both realized and implemented to the benefit of students and their families,” said Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC), chair of the Education and Workforce Committee.
