After the Supreme Court of the United States rejected President Biden’s plan to cancel more than $400 billion in student debt, the Biden administration announced it will wipe out $39 billion in student loans. The Department of Education said the move will fixed administrative errors, as some payments did not count toward the total student loan and therefore, did not properly qualify borrowers for student loan relief, Causes.com reported.
More than 800,000 borrowers with debts outstanding for more than 20 years could have their student loans discharged.
“For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress towards forgiveness,” Miguel Cardona, United States Secretary of Education, said.
Eligible borrowers will have made payments for 20 or 25 years, depending on their plan.
“This action is the result of long-overdue fixes to structural failures in the student loan system that prevented borrowers from actually getting the relief promised by law,” Abby Shafroth, co-director of advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center and director of its Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, said.
Some government officials said the move was “unconstitutional” and would ruin postsecondary education financing.
“This president is dead set on ruining our postsecondary education financing system for a few votes next November,” Virginia Foxx, the chairwoman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee and North Carolina Republican representative, said. “Taxpayers and the rule of law be damned.”
The Department of Education said borrowers who qualify for student loan forgiveness will be notified in the coming weeks.
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