Jan. 16 (UPI) — The outgoing Biden administration announced its final round of student loan forgiveness on Thursday, erasing more than $600 million in debt held by more than 8,000 borrowers.
In a statement Thursday, the Department of Education said 4,550 borrowers will receive loan forgiveness through its Income-Based Repayment Plan. Another 4,100 former DeVry University students will receive loan relief based on findings announced by the department in February 2022 that Devry made “widespread substantial misrepresentations about its job placement rates.”
“For decades, the federal government promised to help people who couldn’t afford their student loans because they were in public service, had disabilities, were cheated by their college or who had completed decades of payments. But it rarely kept those promises until now,” Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said in a statement.
“These permanent reforms have already helped more than borrowers, and many more borrowers will continue to benefit,” he said.
Student loan forgiveness has been a priority of President Joe Biden and his administration, whose attempts to cancel billions of dollars in students loans have been met with staunch Republican opposition.
In the summer of 2023, the Supreme Court blocked Biden’s plan to offer up to $20,000 in student loan relief to millions of eligible borrowers.
In response, the White House in February announced another plan, the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, which had canceled some $5.5 billion in student debt held by more than 400,000 borrowers before an injunction prevented further implementation of parts of the policy.
According to the Department of Education, Biden, who leaves office on Monday, has provided a combined $188.8 billion in loan forgiveness for 5.3 million borrowers with 33 executive actions.
“For too long, millions of borrowers have been paying into a system that has not recognized their efforts. Now, thanks to this IDR Account Adjustment update and other Biden-Harris Administration efforts to fix this long-broken system, borrowers will finally receive the credit they’ve earned and be one step closer to relief, Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel of the Student Borrow Protection Center, said in a statement.
Along with the loan forgiveness, the Department of Education announced Thursday that it had completed the payment count adjustment for borrowers enrolled in the income-driven repayment play, allowed them to see their repayment counters when they log into their account.
Yu added that this change is “a critical step” to ensuring borrowers actually receive their loan relief.
“It gives borrowers the tools to hold servicers and the federal government accountable if they fail to deliver on the relief borrowers are entitled to under the law,” Yu said.
With uncertainty hanging over the future of the loan relief programs with President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House on Monday, Yu said they are encouraging all borrowers to screenshot their new count and save it in their records.
The announcement from the Biden administration comes just a few days after the president approved student loan relief for more than 150,000 borrowers.