ICYMI: CNN Highlights How Biden Administration Continues to Provide Student Debt Relief

Yesterday, CNN reported that President Biden's administration has provided more than $48 billion in debt relief since last June. According to CNN, "[t]he cancellations have come through existing federal student loan forgiveness programs, which are limited to specific categories of borrowers, such as public-sector workers, people defrauded by for-profit colleges, and borrowers who have paid for at least 20 years."

In total, the Biden-Harris Administration has approved $127 billion in debt relief for 3.6 million borrowers, which CNN says is "more student loan forgiveness than was granted under any other administration."

Reads the full story below:

CNN: How Biden is continuing to cancel student loan debt despite Supreme Court ruling
[Katie Lobosco, 10/22/23]

Although the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's signature student loan forgiveness program in late June, his administration has found ways to cancel more than $48 billion in debt since then.

The cancellations have come through existing federal student loan forgiveness programs, which are limited to specific categories of borrowers, such as public-sector workers, people defrauded by for-profit colleges, and borrowers who have paid for at least 20 years.

These programs are separate from the rejected forgiveness plan, which would have canceled about $430 billion of the $1.6 trillion of outstanding federal student loan debt all at one time.

The Biden administration has been granting student loan forgiveness through these existing programs on a rolling basis since coming into office and has discharged a total of $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million people to date.

That's more student loan forgiveness than was granted under any other administration – in part due to the Biden administration's efforts to temporarily expand some debt relief programs and to correct past administrative errors made to borrowers' student loan accounts. The actions draw a stark contrast with the Trump administration, which tried to limit some of these forgiveness programs and slowed the processing of some applications.

But Biden's Republican critics say that at least some of his debt relief actions are illegal and are an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's ruling.

Recounting past payments and fixing errors

Nearly $42 billion of federal student loan debt has been canceled for almost 855,000 borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans – largely due to the Biden administration's effort to recount borrowers' past payments and fix what officials have called "past administrative failures."

Borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans, which have been available in some form since 1993, are generally eligible for debt discharges after making qualifying payments for at least 20 years. The plans lower monthly payments by tying them to a borrower's income and family size.

But the Department of Education has historically had trouble tracking borrowers' payments.

Last year, the US Government Accountability Office recommended that the department do more to ensure that borrowers receive the forgiveness they are entitled to, after it found that there were thousands of loans still in repayment that could already be eligible for forgiveness.

"These are borrowers getting discharges that they should have received under programs authorized by Congress if they'd been operated as they should have over decades," a Department of Education official said to CNN in an emailed statement.

Generally, the one-time recount will give borrowers credit toward forgiveness for any months in which they made payments regardless of what repayment plan they were enrolled in at the time, according to the Department of Education. The recount especially helps borrowers who may have been inappropriately steered by their student loan servicing company into a long-term forbearance, a period in which they stopped making payments.

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