Late last month, President Biden canceled $5.8 billion in student loan debt for 77,700 public service workers through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF).
The public service workers who will receive the debt forgiveness are teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other public servants, who are eligible for relief.
Under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, public service workers who reached 10 years of payments while working in public service would be eligible for relief.
However, rigid rules and missteps by student loan servicers left many borrowers unable to get the cancellation they were promised, according to The Associated Press.
To address this long-standing issue, the Biden administration loosened some rules and gave many borrowers credit toward their 10 years of payments.
Prior to Biden’s decision, approximately 7,000 borrowers had successfully gotten their loans canceled, the AP reports.
“These public service workers have dedicated their careers to serving their communities, but because of past administrative failures, never got the relief they were entitled to under the law,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.
The latest debt relief announcement is one of several that President Biden has made in recent months to lower or cancel student debt for millions of Americans.
According to Cardinal & Pine, the Biden administration has now canceled nearly $144 billion in federal student loans through the public service program and others.
“From day one of my Administration, I promised to fix broken student loan programs and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” President Biden stated.
“I won’t back down from using every tool at my disposal to deliver student debt relief to more Americans, and build an economy from the middle out and bottom up.”
