The Biden administration is canceling student loans for another 160,000 borrowers through a combination of existing programs.
The Education Department announced the latest round of cancellation on Wednesday, saying it will erase $7.7 billion in federal student loans. With the latest action, the administration said it has canceled $167 billion in student debt for nearly 5 million Americans through several programs.
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The latest relief will go to borrowers in three categories who hit certain milestones that make them eligible for cancellation. It will go to 54,000 borrowers who are enrolled in Biden’s new income-driven repayment plan, along with 39,000 enrolled in earlier income-driven plans, and about 67,000 who are eligible through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Are you defending a politician’s fix to a broken system with dozens of highly specific and hard to understand reforms?
Are you not informed about the political realities and the limits of power of the Executive branch?
If Biden had the choice between one broad fix that was easily communicated vs dozens of micro reforms; I’d prefer the broad reform even if I didn’t personally qualify.
I think we all would, and Biden tried the big broad fix. The Supreme Court shot it down in June of last year:
Supreme Court strikes down Biden student-loan forgiveness program
"By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its authority last year when it announced that it would cancel up to $400 billion in student loans. The Biden administration had said that as many as 43 million Americans would have benefitted from the loan forgiveness program; almost half of those borrowers would have had all of their student loans forgiven."
So instead of doing nothing, Biden is working within the limits of the power he does have to provide student loan forgiveness. Yes its patchwork, yes we'd like a broader application of student loan forgiveness. He tried. Its not in his power.