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Despite legal hurdles and the fast-approaching election, the White House is forging ahead with another broad student debt relief plan in the waning days of Joe Biden’s presidency.
The federal Education Department released the much-anticipated proposal, which the Biden administration says could provide student loan forgiveness to approximately eight million Americans, on Friday.
The proposed rules likely represent the last significant student debt-related action that the Biden administration will take before the next U.S. president is decided in early November.
It would authorize the U.S. education secretary to automatically cancel the debts of potentially millions of student loan borrowers whom the government expects will likely default on their loans in the next two years, provided they meet certain criteria based on household income, assets and pre-existing debt.
A second component of the plan would create a new application through which borrowers experiencing forms of “hardship” could apply for forgiveness. Among other categories, those challenges would include chronic illness, medical debt, costs related to child care and the impacts of natural disasters.
On a call with reporters Thursday, Lael Brainard, the national economic advisor, said recent natural disasters in the U.S. have illustrated why Americans can’t continue to worry about making student loan payments amid major, unexpected life challenges.
“Just over the past month, we’ve seen the devastation that people can face when disasters like Hurricanes Helene and Milton strike,” Brainard said. “The repayment of student debt at times like this just shouldn’t be an additional burden.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican congresswoman from North Carolina and the outgoing chair of the House education committee, called it a “blatant attempt to bribe voters” in the eleventh hour before voters head to the polls.
Read more:Biden touts student debt relief milestone as election and court battles loom
The proposal, which was greenlit by federal negotiators in February, is separate from other parts of a broader student debt relief plan Biden committed to in April. Through that effort, which has already been subject to legal pauses even though it has yet to be finalized, tens of millions of borrowers could see partial or full forgiveness.
Meanwhile, millions of borrowers are in forbearance for at least another six months after court challenges halted Biden’s signature student loan repayment plan known as Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE. Oral arguments in that case began in an appellate court on Thursday. According to Andrew Bailey, the Republican attorney general of Missouri, a ruling out of that court on the plan’s legality could be expected in the next few weeks.
Advocates for student loan borrowers commended Friday’s announcement. In a statement, Persis Yu, the deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, applauded the administration for continuing to push for debt cancellation despite the specter of legal threats from conservatives.
“Over the last year, right-wing Attorneys General have relentlessly attacked millions of working families with student debt and pushed them further into debt in an attempt to score political points,” Yu said.
