Biden Proposes Debt Relief for 8 Million Student Loan Borrowers

The Biden-Harris administration has proposed student loan forgiveness for nearly 8 million borrowers, the Department of Education announced.

The Department of Education recently introduced a set of rules that would authorize student loan forgiveness for this number of borrowers, Erudera.com reports.

“If finalized as the Department of Education proposes, these rules would authorize student debt relief to millions of borrowers struggling with high medical costs, childcare costs, and other financial hardships such as the impacts of a natural disaster,” the Department said in a press release on October 25, 2024.

The proposed rules are a result of the student debt relief negotiated rulemaking process, the most recent attempt to provide relief to student loan borrowers.

Under the proposed regulation, borrowers could see loan forgiveness through two pathways:

• Automatic relief without having to submit an application for borrowers who have at least an 80 percent chance of defaulting on their loans within the next two years.
• Primarily application-based relief for current and future borrowers who the department assesses they are in "severe negative and persistent circumstances."

“The rules proposed by the Biden-Harris Administration today would provide hope to millions of struggling Americans whose challenges may make them eligible for student debt relief. President Biden, Vice President Harris, and I will not stop fighting to deliver student debt relief and create a fairer, more just, and more affordable student loan system for all borrowers,” US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said.

The proposal will be published in the Federal Register in the coming weeks. The public will be able to submit comments for 30 days before the proposal is completed by the Department in 2025.

To date, the Biden-Harris administration has approved over $170 billion in student loan debt for nearly 5 million borrowers, including:

• $74 billion for over one million borrowers working in public service, through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.
• $56.5 billion for over 1.4 million borrowers through Income-Driven Repayment.
• $28.7 billion for over 1.6 million borrowers whose schools cheated, who saw their institutions closing, or who were involved in related court settlements.
• $16.2 billion for about 572,000 borrowers totally and permanently disabled.

The Biden administration most recently announced 4.5 billion in student debt will be forgiven for more than 60,000 borrowers (nurses, teachers, firefighters, and others), bringing the number of public service workers with canceled loans to over 1 million.