Vice President Kamala Harris trumpeted the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to wipe out student loan for millions of borrowers.
“We see a future where no teacher has to struggle with the burden of student loan debt,” said Harris in a speech to the American Federation of Teachers on Thursday. “Our administration has forgiven student loan debt for nearly 5 million Americans,” including teachers and other public servants.
But Harris warned that Public Service Loan Forgiveness and other federal student debt relief initiatives are in danger due to Republican opposition. And a Trump presidency could roll back or even repeal these programs.
Nearly $170 Billion In Student Loan Forgiveness Approved By Biden-Harris Administration
The Biden-Harris administration has approved upwards of $170 billion in student loan forgiveness during the last four years, according to Education Department data. Despite President Joe Biden’s initial student debt relief plan getting struck down by the Supreme Court last summer, the administration has managed to implement such unprecedented relief by improving and expanding existing loan forgiveness programs. The relief includes:
- $51 billion in student loan forgiveness for more than 1 million borrowers through the IDR Account Adjustment, a temporary program designed to rectify past issues with income-driven repayment plans.
- $28.7 billion in loan forgiveness for at least 1.6 million borrowers who were misled by their schools or experienced a school closing while they were enrolled.
- $14.1 billion in student loan discharges for more than half a million borrowers with medical impairments.
- $5.5 billion in debt relief for 414,000 borrowers through an accelerated student loan forgiveness benefit under the SAVE plan, a new IDR program designed to reduce monthly payments.
Close to five million borrowers have benefited from these initiatives, according to the department.
Harris Touts Student Loan Forgiveness Successes Under PSLF Program
In her speech to the American Federation of Teachers on Thursday, Harris focused on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. PSLF can wipe out a borrower’s federal student loan debt after 120 so-called “qualifying” payments — which, if all eligibility criteria are met, is the equivalent of 10 years. Borrowers must commit to working in public service jobs for nonprofit or government organizations, such as public schools, during that time.
The PSLF program had been riddled with problems for years, however. Due to a combination of complex eligibility rules, poor loan servicing practices, and inadequate oversight by the Education Department, it was common for borrowers to make significant payments on their student loans, only to find out later that they didn’t qualify for loan forgiveness through PSLF. In some cases, borrowers wound up owing more than they originally borrowed, despite years of payments.
Harris spoke of a specific teacher she met in Philadelphia recently, who was “the first in her family to go to college. And she had been, like many, paying off her student loans for 20 years,” said Harris. “And she told me, she was like, look, ‘I had many times wondered, would I have to leave this profession I love to just be able to pay my bills? But I didn’t leave, because I love what I do.’” Harris continued: “But making decisions about what she could afford in terms of her daily obligations and dealing with these loans, and after 20 years, she still owed $40,000 in student loans.”
“And we forgave it all,” said Harris, to applause.
Prior to 2021 when President Biden took office, PSLF had an a dismal approval rate than never hovered above one or two percent. As a result of temporary waivers that relaxed key rules and new regulations that went into effect last year, the success rate for PSLF has skyrocketed. At least 946,000 borrowers have now received student loan forgiveness under the program — up from only 7,000 through the entire program’s existence from 2007 to 2020.
PSLF And Other Student Loan Forgiveness Programs Could Be At Risk
Harris warned that conservative plans to repeal student loan forgiveness programs, including PSLF, could get implemented if former President Trump returns to office. She pointed to Project 2025, a vast conservative policy proposal to revamp the federal government. Project 2025 calls for undoing several loan forgiveness plans, including popular initiatives like PSLF that were enacted on a bipartisan basis long before President Biden took office.
“The new Administration must end the prior Administration’s abuse of the agency’s payment pause and HEA loan forgiveness programs, including borrower defense to repayment, closed school discharge, and Public Service Loan Forgiveness,” reads the proposal. It also calls for an end to “interest rate subsidies or loan forgiveness” for IDR plans, which it says “ essentially converts these student loans into delayed grant programs.”
“Congress should set policy—not Presidents through pen-and-phone executive orders, and not agencies through regulations and guidance,” said the proposal. “Bolstered by an ever-growing cabal of special interests that thrive on federal largesse, the infrastructure that supports America’s costly federal intervention in education from early childhood through graduate school has entrenched itself. But, unlike the public sector bureaucracies, public employee unions, and the higher education lobby, families and students do not need a Department of Education to learn, grow, and improve their lives. It is critical that the next Administration tackle this entrenched infrastructure.”
The Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from the initiative. But Trump himself has railed against the Biden-Harris student loan forgiveness initiatives at recent rallies, calling them “vile.”
Republican-Led Lawsuits Already Threatening Student Loan Forgiveness And Repayment Plans
Harris’s statement comes as unprecedented chaos and uncertainty leaves many federal student loan borrowers confused and frustrated. Last week, in response to one of several legal challenges recently brought by Republican-led states and supported by conservative-leaning groups, a federal appeals court issued a temporary order blocking President Biden’s new SAVE plan. SAVE lowers payments and provides pathways to eventual student loan forgiveness. At least eight million borrowers have enrolled.
The states, led by Kansas and Missouri, have argued that President Biden exceeded Congressional authority by enacting such generous repayment terms for borrowers. The administration counters that Congress created broad authority for IDR plans over 30 years ago, and left it to the Education Department to set rules for these programs within the limits set by statute.
As a result of the recent court order, the Education Department has placed millions of borrowers into an administrative forbearance. The forbearance will suspend payments and interest, but will not count toward student loan forgiveness for IDR or PSLF. The department also temporarily took down online IDR and Direct loan consolidation applications to revamp its internal systems in order to comply with the court order.
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