The Biden-Harris Administration Announces Final Action on Student Loan Forgiveness and Borrower Assistance

The Biden-Harris Administration today announced its latest round of student loan forgiveness, approving more than $600 million for 4,550 borrowers under the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan and 4,100 defense approvals for individual borrowers. The administration leaves office after approving $188.8 billion in total forgiveness for 5.3 million borrowers through 33 executive actions. The U.S. Department of Education also announced today that it has completed adjusting the income-based repayment count and that borrowers can now see their income-based repayment counts when they log in to their accounts on StudentAid.gov. Finally, the Department has taken additional measures to allow students who attended certain schools that have since closed to qualify for student loan relief.

“Four years ago, President Biden promised to fix a broken student loan system. We rolled up our sleeves and worked together to fix existing programs that had failed to provide the promised relief, take bold action on behalf of borrowers defrauded by their institutions, and bring financial flexibility to hardworking Americans – including public servants – and borrowers with disabilities. Thanks to our tireless and uncompromising efforts, millions of Americans will be approved for student loan forgiveness,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “I am incredibly proud of the historic achievements of the Biden-Harris Administration in making the life-changing potential of higher education more affordable and accessible to more people.”

From day one, the Biden-Harris Administration took steps to rethink, restore, and revitalize targeted relief programs that made borrowers eligible for relief under the Higher Education Act but failed to deliver on their promises. Through a combination of executive actions and regulatory improvements, the Biden-Harris Administration achieved the following outcomes for borrowers:

Long-standing issues with income-driven repayment (IDR) have been resolved. The administration agreed 1.45 million borrowers for $57.1 billion in loan relief, including $600 million for 4,550 borrowers who announced IBR forgiveness today.

IDR plans help keep payments manageable for borrowers and provide a path to forgiveness after an extended period of time. These plans began in the early 1990s, but before the Biden-Harris administration took office, only 50 borrowers had ever had their loans forgiven. The administration corrected long-standing failures to accurately track borrowers’ progress toward forgiveness and addressed previous forbearance control cases in which loan servicers improperly advised borrowers to delay payments for extended periods of time. These totals also include borrowers who received forgiveness under the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan prior to court orders suspending forgiveness under the SAVE plan.

Today, the Ministry also announced the completion of the adjustment of IDR payment figures, correcting the number of eligible payments. While the payment count adjustment is now complete, borrowers impacted by certain servicer transitions in 2024 may receive an additional month or two credited in the coming weeks. The Department also offers borrowers the opportunity to track their IDR progress on StudentAid.gov. Borrowers can now log in to their accounts and view their IDR payment totals and a monthly progress breakdown.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) promise has been restored. The government has granted $78.5 billion in forgiveness to 1,069,000 borrowers.

The PSLF program provides critical support to teachers, military personnel, social workers and others who work in public service. Yet before this administration took office, only 7,000 borrowers had received forgiveness, and the overwhelming majority of borrowers who applied had their applications rejected. The Biden-Harris Administration resolved this program by pursuing regulatory improvements, correcting long-standing problems in tracking progress toward forgiveness and abuse of forbearance, and implementing the limited PSLF waiver to prevent damage from the pandemic.

Automated discharges and simplified eligibility criteria for borrowers with a total and permanent disability. The government has approved $18.7 billion in loan relief to 633,000 borrowers.

Borrowers who are totally and permanently disabled may be eligible for a Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) discharge. The Biden-Harris Administration changed regulations to automatically forgive loans for eligible borrowers based on data matching with the Social Security Administration (SSA). This helped hundreds of thousands of borrowers who were eligible for relief but had failed to complete the paperwork. The Department also made it easier for borrowers to qualify for relief based on SSA decisions, made it easier to complete the TPD application, and eliminated provisions that had resulted in many borrowers having to reinstate their loans.

Providing long-awaited relief to borrowers who have been defrauded by their institutions, whose schools have closed, or through related legal settlements. The government has approved $34.5 billion in loan relief to nearly 2 million borrowers.

For years, students had asked the department for relief by defending the borrower pending repayment – a provision that allows borrowers to have their loans forgiven if their college committed misconduct related to the borrower’s loans. The department delivered long-awaited relief to borrowers who attended some of the most notoriously predatory institutions ever to participate in the federal financial aid programs. This included authorization to pay off all remaining outstanding loans from Corinthian Colleges, as well as group relief for ITT Technical Institute, the Art Institutes, Westwood College, Ashford University and others. The Department also settled a long-running class action lawsuit alleging inaction and issuing formal denials, beginning the first sustained denials of meritless claims.

Today, the Department also approved 4,100 additional individual borrower defense applications for borrowers who attended DeVry University, based on results published in February 2022.

“For decades, the federal government promised to help people who couldn’t afford their student loans because they were public servants, had a disability, were defrauded by their college, or had decades of payments. But these promises have rarely been kept,” said U.S. Undersecretary of Education James Kvaal. “These permanent reforms have already helped more than 5 million borrowers, and many more borrowers will continue to benefit.”

The table below compares the Biden-Harris Administration’s progress in these key relief areas compared to other administrations.

* Includes 107,000 borrowers and $1.25 billion raised through an extension of the closed school lookback window at ITT Technical Institute.

Additional measures related to the dismissal of closed schools

The ministry also announced today additional measures that will enable more borrowers to receive repayment on closed school loans. Generally, a borrower is eligible for a discharge from a closed school if they have not completed their program and were either still enrolled when the school closed or left the school without graduating within 120 days before the closure. . However, the Department has determined that several schools were closed under exceptional circumstances that warrant giving borrowers who graduated and were enrolled in the school more than 120 days before the closure the opportunity to apply for discharge from the closed school to qualify school. Justify an extension of the look-back window beyond the applicable 120 or 180 days to allow additional borrowers to qualify for discharge from closed schools. Generally, eligible borrowers must apply for these reliefs, but the Secretary has directed Federal Student Aid to alert borrowers of their eligibility and to seek automatic relief for those affected by closures between 2013 and 2020 who did not enroll within move to another location three years after their school closed.

These customized lookback windows are:

• Through May 6, 2015 for all locations that were then owned by Career Education Corporation (CEC) and have since closed. That day, CEC announced it would close or sell all but two brands of locations. This affected the art institutes Le Cordon Bleu, Brooks Institute, Missouri College, Briarcliffe College and Sanford-Brown.
• Through December 16, 2016 for locations owned by Education Corporation of America (ECA) on the date of closure. ECA operated Virginia College, Brightwood College, EcoTech, and Golf academies and began closing after its accreditation agency lost federal recognition and ECA was unable to obtain accreditation elsewhere.
• Through October 17, 2017, for all locations then owned or sold by Education Management Corporation (EDMC) that were subsequently closed. On that date, EDMC sold substantially all of its assets to Dream Center Educational Holdings. The decision affects borrowers who attended art institutions, including Miami International University of Art & Design and Argosy University.
• Until April 23, 2021 for Bay State College. On that day, this Massachusetts-based college faced significant accreditation challenges that ultimately resulted in the school losing its accreditation and closing in August 2023.

Borrowers who would like more information about closed school dismissals and how to apply can visit here StudentAid.gov/closedschool.

A state-by-state breakdown of various forms of student debt relief approved by the Biden-Harris Administration is available Here.