Biden admin cancels another $5 billion in student loan debt amid borrowers' repayment boycott

For the second week in a row, the Biden administration announced another round of federal student debt cancellations, according to a Friday press release from the White House.

Biden is pushing forward with his plan to zero out student loan debt piece by piece after the Supreme Court shot down the president’s unlawful sweeping debt cancellation plan last year that would have eliminated $10,000 of federal student loan debt for individuals making under $125,000 yearly and married couples making less than $250,000 yearly.

On Friday, Biden announced that his administration would cancel approximately $5 billion of debt for another 74,000 borrowers. Many of those who are eligible for the latest round of cancellations are teachers, nurses, and firefighters.

“Of the 74,000 borrowers approved for relief today, nearly 44,000 of them are teachers, nurses, firefighters and other individuals who earned forgiveness after 10 years of public service, and close to 30,000 of them are people who have been in repayment for at least 20 years but never got the relief they earned through income-driven repayment plans,” the White House press release stated.

The latest cancellations result from the administration’s changes to the income-driven repayment forgiveness and Public Service Loan Forgiveness plans.

According to the administration, more than 3.7 million Americans have had their federal student loans zeroed out since Biden took office. The so-called debt relief — passed on to taxpayers — totals over $137 billion.

Last Friday, Biden announced that borrowers who took out less than $12,000 and have been in repayment for at least ten years will have their debt canceled under the administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, Blaze News previously reported.

The White House said, “This action will particularly help community college borrowers, low-income borrowers, and those struggling to repay their loans.”

During the COVID lockdowns in 2020, the federal government paused student loan repayments. That repayment pause ended in October.

According to a recent survey by Intelligent.com, millions of federal student loan borrowers are still refusing to make payments in hopes their boycott will push the Biden administration to cancel most or all of their outstanding debt, Blaze News previously reported.

“Of the one-fourth of borrowers who haven’t made any payments, 9% say they are intentionally boycotting repayment as a way of pressuring the federal government to cancel federal student loan debt,” the survey found.

Many of the 1,000 borrowers who were polled said their boycott would bring attention to the student loan debt conversation and even compel political candidates to consider sweeping cancellations.

The Biden administration repeatedly stated it “won’t back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need to reach their dreams.”

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