Student loan forgiveness: 125,000 borrowers to get good news about debt relief

An additional 125,000 student loan borrowers will see debt relief from the federal government according to an announcement from the White House.

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The debt relief is coming through three different already existing debt relief programs that have had problems in the past, the administration said.

The problems include payments that were miscounted or not correctly credited.

The announcement comes days after federal student loan payments restarted after a three-plus-year pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new debt relief plan includes 53,000 borrowers who will receive debt cancellation under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The PSLF eliminates remaining student loan debt for qualifying public sector workers who made 10 years’ worth of monthly payments.

In addition, 51,000 borrowers who have been in repayment for at least 20 years will see their debt erased after the administration found that they already qualified for student loan forgiveness but were not notified of that.

Finally, nearly 22,000 borrowers who have a total or permanent disability have now been approved for an automatic debt discharge through a data match with the Social Security Administration.

In August, the administration also launched an income-driven repayment plan called SAVE, or Saving on a Valuable Education, that will reduce monthly payments for eligible student loan borrowers.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June rejected Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, which would have canceled as much as $20,000 in student loan debt for individual borrowers, totaling $430 billion.