White House forgives $4.5B in student debt for public service workers

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it’s forgiving an additional $4.5 billion in student debt for more than 60,000 public sector employees.

The latest round of forgiveness brings the total amount of student debt canceled under President Biden to more than $175 billion for nearly 5 million people, 11% of all outstanding federal student debt.

Thursday’s debt forgiveness announcement was issued through the Department of Education’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which lets the government cancel federal student loans after 10 years for certain nonprofit and government workers. The program was created in 2007 by President George W. Bush.

“Public service workers — teachers, nurses, firefighters and more — are the bedrocks of our communities and our country,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “But for too long, the government failed to live up to its commitments.” 

Borrowers eligible for this round of relief should learn of their canceled debt in the coming weeks.

The announcement comes in the final weeks of a tight race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. In a margin-of-error race, the White House hopes the latest round of student loan forgiveness will help Ms. Harris with younger and Black voters.

Ms. Harris has vowed to strengthen the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and expand it to help Black men become public school teachers.

By contrast, Mr. Trump has called for eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, arguing it’s too expensive for the federal government. He has also spoken out against Mr. Biden’s efforts to cancel student debt.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program has long been troubled with some workers complaining that the program’s rejection rate was as high as 98%. Borrowers also became frustrated that after years of making payments, they learned they were in the wrong repayment plan or had the wrong type of loan.

Still, the program is one of the few workarounds for Mr. Biden to keep his campaign pledge to forgive student loans after the Supreme Court declared his initial forgiveness plan unconstitutional. The original plan would have canceled up to $20,000 of student debt for low- and middle-income borrowers.