Biden Continues to Deliver Student Debt Relief Despite Aggressive Conservative Challenges

President Biden announced the latest tranche of targeted debt cancellation in the form of $9 billion for 125,000 borrowers—bringing the current total to $127 billion for 3.6 million Americans.

This is yet another reaffirmation of the President’s commitment to delivering student debt relief for as many Americans as possible—a major campaign promise—despite persistent efforts to thwart him by Republicans, their surrogates, and a regressively conservative Supreme Court.

This latest wave of debt cancellation comes immediately after the end of a three year pause on student loan payments triggered initially by Donald Trump’s 2020 executive order and repeatedly renewed under Biden. Though the President had consistently declared he would eventually lift the debt moratorium, it was also demanded by Congressional Republicans during the debt ceiling negotiations between Biden and former Speaker McCarthy back in May.

Months after the United States Supreme Court predictably—but dubiously—struck down his first attempt at an ambitious student loan forgiveness program, the President unveiled an alternative approach: the SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education) Plan.

SAVE, which was upheld despite right wing legal challenges, calculates payments based on income and family size rather than loan balances, cuts payment on undergraduate loans from 10% discretionary income down to 5%, eliminates payments for those who make less than $15/hr., and will eliminate outstanding balances after a certain number of years.

Eligible borrowers may apply here.