Biden Forgives Another $7.7 Billion in Student Debt

(NewsReady.com) – President Joe Biden tried to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans for all qualifying Americans, but the Supreme Court killed his plan. So instead of applying the program nationally, the POTUS targeted specific debt holders. He took the steps to make changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program and created the SAVE Plan to help some borrowers. The administration has now announced billions more in forgiveness.

On May 21, the US Department of Education announced $7.7 billion more in student loan forgiveness for over 160,000 borrowers. Those who received debt relief fell into three categories: individuals receiving forgiveness under income-driven repayment (IDR), those who applied for the SAVE Plan, and people who qualified for PSLF.

Over $5 billion was forgiven for 66,900 borrowers through the PSLF. That brings the total relief for that program up to $68 billion for 942,000 borrowers.
More than 39,000 borrowers had $1.9 billion forgiven through the IDR plan. So far, over 1 million borrowers have received a total of $51 billion in forgiveness from IDR relief.
An excess of 54,000 people received a total of $613 million in forgiveness through the SAVE plan. That total has reached $5.5 billion for 414,000 people.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona praised the administration for being persistent with its “efforts to bring student debt relief to millions” of Americans. According to the secretary, 10% of “federal loan borrowers have now been approved for some debt relief.”

The total amount of loan forgiveness has reached $167 billion for 4.75 million Americans. Those numbers also include 548,000 borrowers with total and permanent disabilities who received $14.1 billion and $28.7 billion for 1.6 million borrowers.

Republicans are challenging the SAVE plan in court. The administration has leaned on the fixes to the programs already in place, trying to make them work better for the American people. The GOP argues that taxpayers are going to get stuck with the bills for the children of wealthy elites.