The federal government also approved $16.2 billion in relief for nearly 572,000 borrowers with a total and permanent disability.
President Joe Biden announced on Dec. 20 that the federal government has canceled an additional $4.28 billion in student debt for 55,000 public service workers across the country.
In a statement, Biden said teachers, nurses, service members, and law enforcement officials, are among the public service workers who will benefit from the latest debt cancellation.
They are individuals who have “dedicated their lives to giving back to their communities and who are finally earning the relief they are entitled to under the law,” he said.
The latest approval brings the total amount of student loan forgiveness for public service workers to about $180 billion for nearly 5 million Americans, the U.S. Department of Education said in a Dec. 20 statement.
That includes $78 billion for more than 1 million borrowers, which was made possible through “significant fixes” to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program, the Department of Education said in the statement.
The PSLF was established in 2007 under President George W. Bush and grants loan forgiveness to individuals who have made monthly payments for 10 years while also working in public service.
The latest debt relief includes borrowers who have benefitted from the administration’s limited PSLF waiver—which ended in October 2022—and from “regulatory improvements” made to the program during the current administration, the department said.
Biden said that since taking office, student debt forgiveness has been a priority in ensuring higher education is “a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity.”
In total, the federal government has approved $56.5 billion in debt relief for more than 1.4 million borrowers through Income-Driven Repayment, and $28.7 billion for more than 1.6 million borrowers who “were cheated by their schools, saw their institutions precipitously close, or are covered by related court settlements,” according to the department.
The federal government has also approved $16.2 billion in relief for nearly 572,000 borrowers with a total and permanent disability and secured a $900 increase to the maximum Pell Grant, which is designed to help students from low-income households, according to the department.
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