White House cancels $5B in student debt for 74K borrowers

In the latest wave of student loan forgiveness, the Biden administration canceled $5 billion in student debt for 74,000 borrowers on Friday.

The White House said more than half — 44,000 — of those receiving the loan forgiveness are teachers, nurses, firefighters and others who work in the public sector. About 30,000 of those public service employees had been on an income-driven repayment program for 20 years.

The move raises the number of borrowers who have seen their debts erased by President Biden to 3.7 million. It’s part of smaller relief programs the White House launched after the Supreme Court struck down its student debt relief plan.

This month, the White House said it would eliminate federal student debt for certain borrowers who took out less than $12,000 in federal loans. Last month, Mr. Biden approved $4.8 billion in student debt cancellation for more than 80,000 borrowers.

“My administration is able to deliver relief to these borrowers — and millions more — because of fixes we made to the broken student loan programs that were preventing borrowers from getting the relief they were entitled to under the law,” the president said in a statement.

Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative organization that advocates for small business, blasted Mr. Biden, saying his efforts run afoul of the Supreme Court decision.

“His lawless actions make a mockery of the separation of powers and set a dangerous precedent that consolidates more power in the executive branch. College students themselves are the biggest losers of Biden’s college debt forgiveness because colleges are given a blank check to continue overcharging and saddling them with debt,” she said in a statement.

The Supreme Court in June struck down Mr. Biden’s student debt relief plan, ruling it was unconstitutional because it wasn’t explicitly approved by Congress.

In his statement Friday, Mr. Biden said his administration is “continuing to pursue an alternative path to deliver student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible as quickly as possible” in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision.