Two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration cannot go forward with its planned student loan debt forgiveness program, the Department of Education announced on Friday that it planned to discharge $39 billion in debt for 800,000 borrowers.
The "forthcoming discharges are a result of fixes implemented by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure all borrowers have an accurate count of the number of monthly payments that qualify toward forgiveness under income-driven repayment (IDR) plans," Education Undersecretary James Kvaal said in a statement. "At the start of this Administration, millions of borrowers had earned loan forgiveness but never received it. That's unacceptable."
Future loan payments for borrowers affected by the errors whose debts were supposed to be forgiven after 20 or 25 years under income-driven repayment plans will be canceled, the Department said. President Biden initially announced a plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student debt for tens of millions of borrowers who earn less than $125,000. "I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families," Biden said in a statement after the Supreme Court's decision was handed down.
