Biden rolls out another student debt relief plan, this time targeting borrowers at risk of default
Jordan Weissmann
Updated Fri, October 25, 2024
The Biden administration released its latest proposal to cancel student loans for millions of Americans on Friday, pushing ahead with the effort even as its other major attempts at debt relief remain tied up in the courts.
The new plan is aimed at helping borrowers who face financial hardships that would make it difficult for them to ever fully pay back their loans. Up to 8 million individuals could see part or all of their debt wiped away at a cost of about $112 billion, according to the Department of Education’s estimates.
The initiative would create two new paths to forgiveness. First, the government would automatically discharge loans for borrowers if it determines, based on a formula, that they have an at least 80% chance of defaulting within the next two years. The Department of Education would make those predictions using its own internal data, and not require individuals to apply for the one-time program.
Borrowers who do not qualify for automatic forgiveness would be able to apply for a second program, in which the government would make a “holistic” assessment of whether they face financial hardship using a long list of factors, including their household income, debt levels, disability status, and where they went to school.
Administration officials suggested the new plans were designed to cancel debts in cases where attempting to collect might no longer be worthwhile to the government because the borrowers would have so much trouble ever repaying their balances.
“Remember, servicing and collecting on defaulted loans — it's not free,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a press call. “It costs taxpayer dollars, and it can harm borrowers.”
The new plans were proposed as the first step of a formal rulemaking process under the Higher Education Act that could take months to complete, leaving open the question of whether a potential Trump administration would follow through with them.
Nonetheless, the move earned praise from student borrower advocates, who’ve long argued that the president has broad power to forgive debts, particularly for troubled borrowers.
Read more: Do I qualify for student loan forgiveness?
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, speaking at the White House in September. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
“It’s good, it’s necessary, it’s overdue,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center. “This is a power the education secretary has had for half a century and has been used in fits and starts. But there’s never been a holistic articulation of how you should use it and who it should help.”
The move arrives in the middle of a long and tangled legal battle over student debt forgiveness, in which the Biden administration has repeatedly seen its efforts to relieve debts stymied thanks to lawsuits brought by Republican-led states.
The Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s first, sweeping attempt to offer broad-based student loan forgiveness in 2023, finding that the administration had overstepped its authority under the federal statute it had relied on.
The administration announced a new plan under a different legal authority in April of this year aimed at helping almost 30 million distressed borrowers. A group of Republican state attorneys general sued to stop the proposal before it could be finalized, and a federal judge hit a temporary pause on it earlier this month. Administration officials emphasized that the new plans announced Friday were legally separate from those rules, even though both rely on the same statute.
The Biden administration’s generous new student loan repayment plan, known as SAVE, is also currently frozen in court. As a result, about 8 million borrowers who had signed up for the program currently have their loans on pause.
Kevin Carey, education policy program director at New America, said he was skeptical that the new program would survive a court challenge. But even if it did, he said it would be a daunting logistical challenge to “holistically” evaluate potentially millions of forgiveness applications.
“I think this is either very naive or very cynical,” he said. “The cynical interpretation is that the department has no intention to ever do this because they’re counting on the judiciary to stop them.”
Jordan Weissmann is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance.
“It’s good, it’s necessary, it’s overdue,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center. “This is a power the education secretary has had for half a century and has been used in fits and starts. But there’s never been a holistic articulation of how you should use it and who it should help.”
The move arrives in the middle of a long and tangled legal battle over student debt forgiveness, in which the Biden administration has repeatedly seen its efforts to relieve debts stymied thanks to lawsuits brought by Republican-led states.
The Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s first, sweeping attempt to offer broad-based student loan forgiveness in 2023, finding that the administration had overstepped its authority under the federal statute it had relied on.
The administration announced a new plan under a different legal authority in April of this year aimed at helping almost 30 million distressed borrowers. A group of Republican state attorneys general sued to stop the proposal before it could be finalized, and a federal judge hit a temporary pause on it earlier this month. Administration officials emphasized that the new plans announced Friday were legally separate from those rules, even though both rely on the same statute.
The Biden administration’s generous new student loan repayment plan, known as SAVE, is also currently frozen in court. As a result, about 8 million borrowers who had signed up for the program currently have their loans on pause.
Kevin Carey, education policy program director at New America, said he was skeptical that the new program would survive a court challenge. But even if it did, he said it would be a daunting logistical challenge to “holistically” evaluate potentially millions of forgiveness applications.
“I think this is either very naive or very cynical,” he said. “The cynical interpretation is that the department has no intention to ever do this because they’re counting on the judiciary to stop them.”
Jordan Weissmann is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance.
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