Biden Cancels $39-B Student Debt Via Program Tweak

US President Joe Biden's administration will cancel $39 billion in student debt for more than 804,000 borrowers, the Education Department said, describing the relief as the result of a "fix" to income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, Juby Babu, Rami Ayyub and Paul Grant reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: The IDR program caps payment requirements for lower-income borrowers and forgives their remaining balance after a set number of years.

Borrowers will be eligible for forgiveness if they have made either 20 or 25 years of monthly IDR payments, the department said.

The IDR program caps payment requirements for lower-income borrowers and forgives their remaining balance after a set number of years.

"These borrowers will join the millions of people that my administration has provided relief to over the past two years – resulting in over $116 billion in loan relief to over 3 million borrowers under my administration," Biden argued.

The department said the relief addresses what it described as "historical inaccuracies" in the count of payments that qualify for forgiveness under IDR plans.

"For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress towards forgiveness," Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said.

The Education Department has launched a regulatory "rulemaking" process to pursue his $430 billion loan relief plan. That process is expected to take months.

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