Biden-Harris administration announces additional $7.7B in approved student debt relief

Another $7.7 billion in student loan debt forgiveness for 160,500 people was announced by the Biden-Harris administration Wednesday, offering relief for millions of borrowers living with student debt.

The recent decision will increase the total student loan debt relief approved by the administration to $167 billion for 4.75 million people, a news release announced. The state of Hawaiʻi has about 124,600 student borrowers with an average student loan debt of $36,918, one of the highest remaining student loan debts averages in the country, according to Education Data Initiative.

“The Biden-Harris Administration remains persistent about our efforts to bring student debt relief to millions more across the country, and this announcement proves it,” said US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “One out of every 10 federal student loan borrowers approved for debt relief means one out of every 10 borrowers now has financial breathing room and a burden lifted.”

The latest breakdown of the $7.7 billion in debt relief includes:

• $5.2 billion for 66,900 borrowers through fixes to PSLF, marking a total of $68 billion in forgiveness for over 942,000 borrowers.
• $613 million for 54,300 borrowers via the SAVE Plan, targeting those with smaller loans, with forgiveness after at least 10 years of payments if they originally borrowed $12,000 or less. This brings the total relief under the SAVE Plan to $5.5 billion for 414,000 borrowers.
• $1.9 billion for 39,200 borrowers through administrative adjustments to IDR payment counts. This addresses issues with forbearance misuse by loan servicers, bringing the total IDR relief to $51 billion for more than 1 million borrowers.

Borrowers have already begun receiving emails informing them of their approvals, according to the Department of Education. Their relief will be processed in the following weeks.

The Department of Education also updated the timing for payment count adjustments, giving borrowers until June 30, 2024, to consolidate their loans to benefit from these adjustments. Borrowers can find out more about the payment count adjustment here.

New plans to deliver debt relief

In April, the Biden-Harris Administration released initial details of a new set of plans that would provide student debt relief for tens of millions of borrowers across the country.

The plans would bring the total number of borrowers eligible for student debt relief to over 30 million, including borrowers who have already been approved for debt cancellation by the Biden-Harris Administration over the past three years.

The plans for new student debt relief regulations announced by President Biden are the next step in a regulatory process that began last summer to provide debt relief to as many borrowers as possible as quickly as possible under the Higher Education Act.

The proposals would permit the following types of waivers:

• Waiving accrued and capitalized interest for millions of borrowers;
• Automatically discharging debt for borrowers not enrolled in but otherwise eligible for loan forgiveness under the SAVE Plan, closed school discharge, or other forgiveness programs;
• Eliminating student debt for borrowers who entered repayment 20 or more years ago;
• Helping borrowers who enrolled in low-financial-value programs or institutions; and
• Assisting borrowers who experience hardship in paying.

Public comments on the first set of plans closed on May 17. The Department is in the process of carefully reviewing comments, with the goal of publishing a final rule that results in delivering relief in the fall.