ED Announces $5.8 Billion in Public Service Loan Forgiveness for 78,000 Borrowers
By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter
The Department of Education (ED) on Thursday announced that nearly 78,000 borrowers will have their student loans canceled through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, totaling $5.8 billion in relief.
ED said this announcement is a result of “fixes” to the PSLF program by the Biden administration, and includes borrowers who have benefited from the department’s limited PSLF waiver and regulatory changes made to the PSLF program.
“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,” ED Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “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.”
ED detailed in its announcement that the total student loan forgiveness through the PSLF program is now $62.5 billion for 871,000 borrowers since October 2021. The department notes that prior to the Biden administration, only about 7,000 borrowers had ever received forgiveness through PSLF.
Additionally, nearly 380,000 borrowers will receive an email from President Joe Biden next week thanking them for their service. These borrowers are within two years, or 24 qualifying payments, from receiving loan forgiveness through the PSLF program. The email from Biden will notify these borrowers that if they continue in their public service work, they will be eligible for forgiveness within those two years.
“The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is an important way to bring more Americans into public service and help them get out from under the burden of student loan debt. But for too long, the program failed to live up to its commitments – and public service workers like you never got the relief you are entitled to under the law because of errors and administrative failures. I vowed to fix that, and I’m proud that my administration has delivered on that promise,” the email from Biden reads.
Publication Date: 3/22/2024
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