After a setback last month by way of the Supreme Court, the Biden administration revamped efforts to relieve Americans of student loan debt Friday.
“Starting today, over 800,000 student loan borrowers who have been repaying their loans for 20 years or more will see $39 billion of their loans discharged because of steps my Administration took to fix failures of the past,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.
Biden has announced plans to cancel student debt in the past. The conservative-leaning Supreme Court ruled in June against some of those plans in two separate rulings.
“When the Supreme Court made the wrong decision, I immediately announced a new plan to open an alternative path to relief for as many borrowers as possible, as soon as possible,” Biden said of the rulings.
Still, more than 3 million borrowers have been relieved of $116 billion in student debt over the past two years, Biden said. In a 2022 fact sheet, the White House said student loan debt had ballooned into a $1.6 trillion crisis impacting 45 million borrowers, especially the middle class.
“I have long said that college should be a ticket to the middle class – not a burden that weighs down on families for decades,” Biden said Friday.
He explained that the administration worked “to secure the largest increases to Pell Grants in a decade, fixed broken loan programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and created a new income-driven repayment plan that will cut undergraduate loan payments in half and bring monthly payments to zero for low-income borrowers,” in order to provide relief to borrowers. In his statement, the president also slammed Republican lawmakers for having “no problem with the government forgiving millions of dollars of their own business loans,” while arguing against student loan relief.
“Some are even objecting to the actions we announced today, which follows through on relief borrowers were promised, but never given, even when they had been making payments for decades,” he said. “The hypocrisy is stunning, and the disregard for working and middle-class families is outrageous.”
Indeed, some Republicans began criticizing the announcement right away.
“The Biden administration’s blatantly political attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court is shameful,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.). “The Biden administration is trampling the rule of law, hurting borrowers, and abusing taxpayers to chase headlines.”
Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday that the new actions will help borrowers who have been paying down their debts for 20 years and were placed into forbearance by loan servicers “in violation of the rules,” as well as others who did not get appropriate credit for their monthly payments. Both Harris and Biden said they are committed to furthering student loan forgiveness while in office.
“As long as I’m in office, I will continue to work to bring the promise of college to every American,” said Biden.
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