The Biden administration announced another $4.28 billion in student loan handouts as President Biden and Vice President Harris prepare to leave the White House.
The massive loan handout will give 54,900 public workers loan forgiveness.
“Four years ago, the Biden-Harris Administration made a pledge to America’s teachers, service members, nurses, first responders, and other public servants that we would fix the broken Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, and I’m proud to say that we delivered,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a release on Friday.
The action brings the total loan forgiveness approved by Biden to nearly $180 billion for nearly 5 million borrowers.
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“With the approval of another $4.28 billion in loan forgiveness for nearly 55,000 public servants, the Administration has secured nearly $180 billion in life-changing student debt relief for nearly five million borrowers,” Cardona said. “The U.S. Department of Education’s successful transformation of the PSLF Program is a testament to what’s possible when you have leaders, like President Biden and Vice President Harris, who are relentlessly and unapologetically focused on making government deliver for everyday working people.”
The Biden-Harris administration touted the program for creating an “incentive” for public servants to “pursue and remain” in their careers by forgiving borrowers’ remaining balance after they made the 120 qualifying monthly payments.
“The relief announced today includes both borrowers who have benefitted from the Administration’s limited PSLF waiver, a temporary opportunity that ended in October 2022, as well as from regulatory improvements made to the program during this Administration,” the release said.
During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden pledged to forgive student loans for millions of Americans if elected, but the president has faced continuous legal roadblocks in his attempt to eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.
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After the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s first attempt at providing broad-based student loan forgiveness, ruling it was an overreach of the executive branch’s authority under the Constitution, the president and his team began to work on other options to provide handouts.
President-elect Trump has not said specifically how he will approach the Biden administration’s student loan handout plans, but he has said he plans to rework the entire education system during his term.
Fox News Digital’s Audrie Spady contributed to this report.
