The forgiveness of remaining debt after 10 years of repayment will be implemented early starting next month. Joe Biden (Photo, Reuters) The administration announced an additional forgiveness of $4.9 billion for 73,600 college student loan borrowers.
On the 19th, the Biden administration announced that 29,700 borrowers were eligible to receive forgiveness of the remaining debt if they repaid their debt for more than 20 years under the existing student loan ‘Income-Driven Repayment Program’ (IDR) but did not receive the benefit due to technical problems.
It was announced that under ‘Public Service Debt Forgiveness’ (PSLF), the remaining debts of 43,900 borrowers who have worked for government agencies or certain non-profit organizations for more than 10 years will be exempted. The amount of forgiveness resulting from this decision amounts to $4.9 billion. The Biden administration said, “We are helping those who deserve forgiveness under the existing system but did not receive it due to a broken system,” and added, “The Biden administration is constantly working to resolve unnecessary obstacles and administrative problems related to student loan forgiveness.” “I have done it,” he said.
According to the White House, since the inauguration of the Biden administration, $136 billion has been forgiven for 3.7 million student loan borrowers. President Biden pushed for forgiveness of up to $20,000 for low- and middle-income student loan borrowers in 2022, but implementation was canceled due to the Federal Supreme Court’s unconstitutional decision in June of last year.
However, the Biden administration is correcting problems with the forgiveness policy that was not properly implemented even though it was established in the existing federal student loan system or lowering the burden on borrowers by expanding the beneficiaries and improving the system.
Recently, the Biden administration has taken measures to forgive the remaining debt for subscribers of the new income-based student loan repayment program ‘SAVE’, which went into effect in August of last year, if the student loan principal is less than $12,000 and the remaining debt is repaid over 10 years. It was announced that it will start early next month. If the loan principal exceeds $12,000, the repayment period for forgiveness is added by one year for each additional $1,000.
This measure was originally planned to be implemented in July but is being implemented several months earlier. According to the Biden administration, as of early this month, there were 6.9 million student loan borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan.