President Joe Biden is canceling an additional $9 billion in student-loan debt, his latest action to aid borrowers after the Supreme Court blocked his debt-relief plan and as payments resume for millions of Americans.
Biden on Wednesday will detail the efforts, which will bring relief for 125,000 borrowers through changes to programs intended to aid public servants, Americans with disabilities and low-income borrowers, according to the White House.
That total includes $5.2 billion in debt relief for 53,000 borrowers in public service loan forgiveness programs.
The administration also identified 51,000 additional borrowers who paid for at least 20 years but never got relief and will provide them nearly $2.8 billion in debt relief through fixes to income-driven repayment.
Another $1.2 billion in relief will go to about 22,000 borrowers deemed to have a total or permanent disability, the White House said.
Biden campaigned on the issue of tackling the nation’s $1.7 trillion student-debt problem and has sought to assure young voters his administration is doing all it can to ease their debt burden even after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority struck down his $400 billion proposal to help more than 40 million borrowers. The steps Biden will announce Wednesday bring the total debt cancellation approved by the administration to $127 billion, aiding about 3.6 million Americans.
The latest relief comes as millions of Americans will start making payments on their student loans again. Moratoriums on payments, first put in place by then-President Donald Trump in 2020 as Covid-19 lockdowns began, were extended multiple times. Biden and House Republicans this summer agreed to allow those payments to resume as part of a deal over the nation’s debt limit. Interest accruals resumed on Sept. 1, and bills will start coming due in October.
Earlier: Why Student Loan Payments Are Back, and What It Means: QuickTake
