WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden announced Friday that his administration is canceling $7.4 billion in student loans for 277,000 borrowers.
The White House said the latest round of aid is helping borrowers enrolled in the Value Education Savings (SAVE) repayment plan, as well as those participating in the Earned Payment or Public Service Loan Forgiveness plans. In the SAVE plan, an income-based repayment plan that took effect last summer, the new policy will allow borrowers with smaller loans to pay off their debt more quickly. Department of education he said.
With the latest move, the administration has now canceled $153 billion for 4.3 million Americans, the White House said.
“Today’s announcement builds on the significant progress we’ve made for students and borrowers over the past three years,” Biden said. “This includes: providing the largest increase to the Pell Grant maximum in more than a decade; establishing Public Service Loan Forgiveness to allow teachers, nurses, police officers and other public service workers the flexibility they are entitled to under the law, and establishing Public Service Loan Forgiveness for college students and are responsible for the benefit of families.
Biden said that once he takes office in 2021, he has “pledged to fight to ensure that higher education is not a barrier to opportunity, but a ticket to the middle class.”
“I will never stop working to eliminate student debt — no matter how hard Republican elected officials try to stop us,” he said.
Biden earlier this week announced revised plans to eliminate student debt The White House said that when implemented, “combined with actions taken by the Administration over the past three years,” it would provide relief to more than 30 million Americans.
This was reported by the Ministry of Education new plans will waive accrued and capitalized interest for millions of borrowers, automatically pay off the debt of borrowers who qualify for loan forgiveness under SAVE or other plans, eliminate student debt for borrowers with repayment terms of 20 years or more, and help low-income borrowers. implements programs and helps borrowers who have difficulty repaying their loans.
The public will have an opportunity to comment on the proposed actions “in the coming weeks,” DOE said.
The administration presented the current efforts for student debt relief after the Supreme Court Repeals Biden’s original student debt reduction programwhich aims to eliminate up to $20,000 in debt for approximately 43 million borrowers.