The Biden administration has approved the discharge of student loan debt for more than 615,000 borrowers since October 2021 under temporary changes to the public service loan forgiveness (PSLF) program, Yahoo! Finance reported. The discharged amount totals $42 billion in debt and is a big increase from the previous administration’s record, which approved just 7,000 borrowers under the PSLF program, or only 2% of PSLF applicants, leading to the basis for the expanded program eligibility. The changes — known as the PSLF waiver — allowed previously denied borrowers to reapply, expanded who qualifies to apply for forgiveness, and counted payments that were otherwise not eligible for the original program. Employees who have worked at least 10 years in the public service jobs with federal, state, local or certain nonprofit organizations are eligible for the PSLF program, including military service members who don’t qualify for other military loan forgiveness programs. Under the normal PSLF program, borrowers must work at least 10 years with a qualifying employer and have made at least 120 full on-time payments in a standard payment plan to be eligible. Also, only Direct Loans qualified for PSLF, but after more than 98% of borrowers who applied for the PSLF program were denied loan forgiveness by the Education Department under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the American Federation of Teachers, among others, sued the department for how it managed the program. The PSLF waiver was enacted as part of the 2021 legal settlement of that lawsuit with the Education Department. The changes it enacted expired Oct. 31, 2022, as part of that settlement.
