WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden plans to announce on Wednesday that his administration has approved an additional $9 billion in student debt relief for 125,000 borrowers, the White House said.
Biden has said he will pursue new measures to provide student loan relief to Americans after the Supreme Court blocked his plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.
The president’s announcement, planned for 1 p.m. EDT at the White House, will bring the total approved debt cancellation by the Biden administration to $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million Americans, the White House said.
CNN reported back in June that President Joe Biden suffered a devastating defeat on this front when the Supreme Court halted the administration’s student loan forgiveness proposal, rejecting a scheme aimed at providing up to $20,000 in assistance to millions of borrowers suffering with outstanding debt.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the conservative supermajority in the 6-3 ruling.
According to Reuters, in August, a federal appeals court also barred the Biden administration from moving through with another portion of its student debt reduction program, a rule that would make it easier for those who were scammed by their colleges to have their loans erased.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, at the request of a group representing for-profit institutions, postponed the rule’s implementation until the outcome of an appeal scheduled for hearing in November.
According to a White House fact sheet, the new measures include:
– $5.2 billion in additional debt relief for 53,000 borrowers under Public Service Loan Forgiveness
programs
– nearly $2.8 billion in new debt relief for nearly 51,000 borrowers through fixes to “income-driven repayment,”
which the White House says are borrowers who made 20 years or more of payments “but never got the relief they were entitled to.”
– And $1.2 billion for nearly 22,000 borrowers who have a disability who have been identified and approved for discharge through a data match with the Social Security Administration.
(Reporting By Steve Holland. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
