(PartiallyPolitics.com) – On Wednesday the Biden administration approved the cancellation of $9 billion in student debt, only days before student loan payments were set to resume following a three-year pause prompted by the pandemic.
The White House has stated that the cancellation would forgive the debt of 125,000 Americans. Federal student loan payments started again on October 1, following the pause that had been used by around 28 million borrowers. In a statement, they noted that President Biden has always believed that college is the “ticket to the middle class” and argued that it should not be a burden for families.
The White House further argued that the Biden administration had started from day one to take action in order to fix the student loan system in the country and make higher education more affordable so that more Americans would have access to it.
The new announcement was going to be available to three different borrower categories.
Debt relief of $5.2 billion was approved for 53,000 borrowers who fall under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. This relief would cancel the debt for not-for-profit workers and public sector employees who have been making direct student loan payments for a decade.
Another $2.8 billion was going to be forgiven for close to 51,000 borrowers who qualified for forgiveness because of their previous payments but had so far not been granted loan relief.
Finally, $1.2 billion would be used to provide relief to the 22,000 borrowers who had either total or permanent disability.
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