President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced that an additional 125,000 Americans have been approved for $9 billion in student debt relief. The decision comes after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s broader plan to cancel debt for millions of Americans.
This new student debt relief will include fixes in the federal Department of Education to income-driven repayment and public service loan forgiveness, as well as granting automatic relief for borrowers with disabilities.
“For years, millions of eligible borrowers were unable to access the student debt relief they qualified for, but that’s all changed thanks to President Biden and this Administration’s relentless efforts to fix the broken student loan system,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “The Biden-Harris administration’s laser-like focus on reducing red tape, addressing past administrative failures, and putting borrowers first have now resulted in a historic $127 billion in debt relief approved for nearly 3.6 million borrowers.”
The progressive group Debt Collective said in a statement that the department should go further: “If the Department of Education can cancel this amount, it can cancel it all — meeting and exceeding the president’s commitment to borrowers currently being crushed by the chaotic return to repayment.”
