The Biden administration on Thursday announced it would forgive $5.8 billion in student loan debt for 77,700 borrowers.
The $5.8 billion in forgiven student loan debt is the result of fixes the administration made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. The Biden administration also said it would email an additional 380,000 public service workers beginning next week to notify them they are on track to have their debt canceled through PSLF within two years, according to a news release.
“For too long, our nation’s teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters, and other public servants faced logistical troubles and trap doors when they tried to access the debt relief they were entitled to under the law,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in the release. “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. Today, more than 100 times more borrowers are eligible for PSLF than there were at the beginning of the Administration. The Biden Administration is turning a promise broken under our predecessor into a promise kept.”
Thursday’s announcement of $5.8 billion in forgiven student loan debt through PSLF is the latest in a wave of student debt cancellations by the Biden administration. In January, the administration canceled about $4.9 billion in student loan debt for 73,600 borrowers, including 43,900 borrowers through the PSLF waiver.
In February, the Biden administration proposed student loan forgiveness for borrowers facing “hardship,” which the administration said it would define using a range of factors, including total debt balance, total household income, history of loan repayment, and more.
Nonetheless, repaying student loan debt remains a challenge for many borrowers. Three in five (60%) student loan borrowers have missed payments since the pandemic-era pause ended in October 2023, according to a report from Intelligent.com. What’s more, nearly one in 10 (9%) borrowers are intentionally boycotting payments to pressure the federal government into student loan debt cancellation, according to the report.