The Biden administration discharged another $4.8 billion in student loan debt for more than 80,000 borrowers, the Education Department announced yesterday, YahooFinance.com reported. That brings the total amount discharged since President Joe Biden took office to $132 billion for more than 3.6 million borrowers. The latest discharges include $2.6 billion for 34,400 borrowers using the public service loan forgiveness (PSLF) program and waiver and $2.2 billion for 46,000 borrowers under the one-time payment adjustment for income-driven repayment plans. Around 750,000 borrowers have received $53.5 billion in relief from the PSLF program, which includes the limited PSLF waiver that ended last October. Only about 7,000 borrowers had received forgiveness through these programs when the president took office. Teachers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals who work in public service jobs with federal, state, local, or certain non-profit organizations are eligible to have their remaining loan balances discharged after 10 years of payments through the PSLF program. PSLF is also available for military service members who don’t qualify for other military loan forgiveness programs. The number of PSLF borrowers who got a discharge increased because of settlement of a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) that offered a PSLF waiver allowing those denied loan forgiveness to reapply by last October.
