President Joe Biden announced another tranche of student loan debt relief totaling more than $1 billion Wednesday morning.
The move comes as Biden has encountered growing dissatisfaction from young voters for several reasons, including his failure to extend student loan debt forgiveness to all American borrowers in the face of his 2024 White House reelection campaign. The president last year put forward a plan that would have made good on that campaign promise before the Supreme Court ruled his unilateral debt forgiveness proposal unconstitutional.
Wednesday’s announcement affects some 153,000 borrowers owing $1.2 billion, all of whom are eligible for shortened debt forgiveness under the “Plan B” debt plan Biden unrolled following the Supreme Court’s decision, a full six months ahead of the president’s previously announced schedule, according to senior administration officials.
That backup initiative, the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, has seen roughly 7.5 million American borrowers enroll since the White House announced the program last fall, with more than half of them qualifying for $0 minimum monthly payments. In total, Biden has extended $138 billion in student loan debt relief for nearly 3.9 million borrowers since entering office, though not all of those borrowers have yet been made aware that their debts have been forgiven.
“With today’s announcement, we are once again sending a clear message to borrowers who had low balances: if you’ve been paying for a decade, you’ve done your part, and you deserve relief,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Under President Biden’s leadership, our Administration has now approved loan forgiveness for nearly 3.9 million borrowers, and our historic fight to cancel student debt isn’t over yet.”
Biden himself is expected to tout this latest tranche of debt forgiveness Wednesday afternoon while speaking in Los Angeles. He departed Washington, D.C., on Tuesday for a three-day campaign tour of California that will also bring him to San Francisco.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“The president will be underscoring again his firm commitment to delivering student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible as quickly as possible,” a senior administration official said of Biden’s planned remarks. “This additional relief that he has announcing tomorrow is just one in a series of efforts — at this point, more than 25 actions — to address student debt and to deliver on forgiveness. This is just one more step in a long, ongoing effort to fix a broken system and deliver student debt relief for millions of Americans.”
Officials say the administration will continue to reach out directly to borrowers who qualify for Biden’s student loan relief programs and plans to announce similar waves of debt forgiveness in the future.
