The Biden administration said it plans to make it easier for lower-income student-loan borrowers to get debt forgiveness through an existing program that has enrolled millions of people, but provided few with relief, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move, announced by the Education Department on Tuesday, is part of a politically sensitive debate on the forgiveness of student-loan debt and attempts to more broadly overhaul how the student-loan repayment system works. President Biden earlier this month extended to Aug. 31 a pandemic-related pause on payments of federal student loans and faces pressure from progressive members of his own party to forgive debt on a larger scale. The changes would apply to an income-based program for repaying student loans, allowing around 3.6 million people — nearly 10% of all student-loan borrowers — to receive at least three years of credit toward eventual debt forgiveness. The program, referred to as income-driven repayment plans, permits borrowers to pay a certain percentage of their income on loans for 20 to 25 years and have the rest of their balances forgiven. Loan servicers play a key role in how borrowers navigate their repayment options. Borrowers and members of both parties in Congress have criticized the program as broken. A 2021 study of government data found that just 32 borrowers out of eight million enrolled in the program successfully had their debt forgiven after decades of payments. The program has existed since 1992. “Today, the Department of Education will begin to remedy years of administrative failures that effectively denied the promise of loan forgiveness to certain borrowers,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
