Biden’s Education Department will immediately wipe out out student loan debt for 40,000 borrowers and bring 3.6M Americans closer to ending payments by promising to fix ‘longstanding failures’ in forgiveness scheme that hit low-income students
- Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called the current student loan system a ‘life sentence’ for millions of low-income borrowers in a Tuesday statement
- The actions taken by Cardona’s department will make nearly 4 million Americans eligible for at least some student loan debt relief, the DoE promised
- The Education Department also accused student loan servicers of predatory ‘forbearance steering’ practices rather than giving borrowers a better option
- It says servicers are inappropriately leading borrowers into forbearance when many could be eligible for $0 payments under income-based repayment plans
- Roughly 41 million people collectively own $1.6 trillion in U.S. student loan debt
- Progressive Democrats including AOC want to swipe all student debt
- Biden has extended the freeze on payments during the pandemic