The Biden-Harris Administration has announced its final measures for student loan forgiveness, approving over $600 million for 4,550 borrowers through the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) Plan and 4,100 individual borrower defense approvals. In total, the administration has approved $188.8 billion in forgiveness for 5.3 million borrowers across 33 executive actions during its tenure.
The U.S. Department of Education revealed that it has completed adjustments to income-driven repayment payment counts, allowing borrowers to view their repayment progress on StudentAid.gov. Additionally, actions have been taken to enable students from certain closed schools to qualify for loan discharges.
"Four years ago, President Biden made a promise to fix a broken student loan system," said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. He emphasized the administration's efforts in delivering relief and making higher education more accessible.
From the start, the administration aimed to revitalize targeted relief programs under the Higher Education Act that had previously failed to meet expectations. Through executive actions and regulatory improvements, they addressed longstanding issues with Income-Driven Repayment (IDR), Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), and Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) discharges.
Under IDR plans, 1.45 million borrowers received $57.1 billion in loan relief, including today's $600 million announcement for IBR forgiveness. These plans aim to keep payments manageable and provide a path to forgiveness after an extended period.
For PSLF, the administration approved 1,069,000 borrowers for $78.5 billion in forgiveness by correcting issues with tracking progress toward forgiveness and misuse of forbearances.
Automated discharges were implemented for TPD borrowers based on data matches with the Social Security Administration (SSA), resulting in $18.7 billion in relief for 633,000 borrowers.
Relief was also provided to nearly two million borrowers affected by institutional misconduct or school closures through borrower defense provisions.
"For decades, the federal government promised to help people who couldn’t afford their student loans... But it rarely kept those promises until now," stated U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal.
The Department also announced additional actions related to closed school discharges extending eligibility windows for affected students from several institutions such as Career Education Corporation campuses and Bay State College among others.
Further information about closed school discharge can be found at StudentAid.gov/closedschool.
