Biden-Harris Administration approves additional $4.5 billion in student debt relief for 60K public service workers

The Biden-Harris Administration announced recently the approval of approximately $4.5 billion in additional student loan relief for over 60,000 borrowers across the country who work in public service.

This relief, which is the result of significant fixes that the Administration has made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program, brings the total loan forgiveness approved by the Administration to over $175 billion for more than 4.8 million Americans, which includes $74 billion for over one million borrowers through PSLF.

This unprecedented milestone builds on the Administration’s efforts to provide relief to as many borrowers as possible across the country. Before President Biden took office, only 7,000 public servants had ever received debt relief through PSLF.

“Before President Biden and Vice President Harris entered the White House, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was so riddled by dysfunction that just 7,000 Americans ever qualified and countless public servants were trapped making payments on debts that should have been forgiven,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “From Day One, the Biden-Harris administration made fixing this broken program a top priority, and today, I’m tremendously proud that over one million teachers, nurses, social workers, veterans, and other public servants have received lifechanging loan forgiveness. As Secretary of Education, I want to send a message to college students across America that pursuing a career in public service is not only a noble calling but a reliable pathway to becoming debt-free within a decade.”

The PSLF program supports public servants — including teachers, nurses, social workers, first responders, service members and other public servants — by forgiving the remaining student loan balance for those who make the required 120 qualifying monthly payments. This relief includes both borrowers who benefited from the Biden-Harris Administration’s limited PSLF waiver, a temporary opportunity that ended in October 2022, as well as from regulatory improvements made to the program during this Administration.

In addition to these fixes to PSLF, the Biden-Harris Administration has also implemented further improvements to PSLF to make it easier for borrowers to participate in the program. As of July 1, 2024, the PSLF Program is now fully managed by the Department through StudentAid.gov, rather than by a single, specialty loan servicer. That means that, for the first time, borrowers can now manage all aspects of their PSLF journey on StudentAid.gov, including submitting their PSLF form and tracking their progress toward forgiveness. These updates simplified the process for borrowers and will provide faster processing of PSLF forms.

The Biden-Harris Administration is also announcing a series of new steps to encourage public servants across the nation to take advantage of the PSLF program.

A number of public sector unions, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), are amplifying the announcement through member-to-member outreach, social media campaigns and more, and are encouraging people to sign up for PSLF.

AFT will be encouraging its members to sign up for student debt clinics to help members get on track with PSLF, with a goal of reaching another 500 teachers and nurses by the end of the year. This is on top of the 34,000 members AFT has reached since starting their student debt clinic series.

NEA will continue to help its members with the NEA Student Debt Navigator, a tool that provides 1-on-1 support for NEA’s members who are struggling with their PSLF application, or any other federal program related to student loans. Since the launch of the Student Debt Navigator, over 48,000 NEA members have signed up to receive support.

To celebrate this milestone, AFSCME will launch a new interactive map on its website, detailing PSLF forgiveness across the country based on Department of Education data. Additionally, AFSCME will update its online resources to facilitate applications for PSLF and create a social media toolkit its members can use to promote PSLF and forgiveness on their own social media platforms.

To encourage people to take advantage of the PSLF program, the Department of Education will send emails from President Biden to public servants who have received PSLF encouraging them to share their stories, and  the Biden-Harris Administration will share information about PSLF with federal employees.

The Department of Education is reaching out to governors and mayors across the country to encourage state and local public service workers to take advantage of the PSLF program.

The Biden-Harris Administration has taken historic steps to reduce the burden of student debt and ensure that student loans are not a barrier to educational and economic opportunity for students and families. The Administration secured a $900 increase to the Pell Grant award—the largest increase in a decade —and finalized new rules to help protect borrowers from career programs that leave graduates with unaffordable debts or insufficient earnings. The Administration continues its work to issue debt relief regulations under the Higher Education Act.

In addition to the relief under PSLF, the Biden-Harris Administration has also approved:

• $56.5 billion for more than 1.4 million borrowers through Income-Driven Repayment, including the Saving on a Valuable Education SAVE plan. This includes administrative adjustments to income-driven repayment that brought borrowers closer to forgiveness and addressed longstanding problems due to past inaccuracies and the misuse of forbearance by loan servicers.

• $28.7 billion for more than 1.6 million borrowers who were cheated by their schools, saw their institutions precipitously close, or are covered by related court settlements.

• $16.2 billion for almost 572,000 borrowers with a total and permanent disability.

Publisher's note: A free press is critical to having well-informed voters and citizens. While some news organizations opt for paid websites or costly paywalls, The Highland County Press has maintained a free newspaper and website for the last 25 years for our community. If you would like to contribute to this service, it would be greatly appreciated. Donations may be made to: The Highland County Press, P.O. Box 849, Hillsboro, Ohio 45133. Please include "for website" on the memo line.