Today, President Biden announced an additional $4.5 billion in student debt cancellation for over 60,000 borrowers through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, bringing the number of public service workers who have had their student loans cancelled to over 1 million people during the Biden-Harris Administration. Before President Biden and Vice President Harris took office, only 7,000 borrowers had ever received forgiveness through PSLF. Thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration’s significant improvements to the PSLF program, over 1 million teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officials, nurses, servicemembers, and other public service workers who have dedicated their lives to serving their communities are getting the student debt relief they are entitled to under the law. Last week, President Biden met with a kindergarten teacher who has been paying her loans for 12 years and let her know that she is one of the 1 million people approved for PSLF under his Administration, and over $46,000 of her loans are being cancelled. In total, the Biden-Harris Administration has approved $175 billion in student debt relief for nearly 5 million borrowers through various actions.

From Day One of their Administration, President Biden and Vice President Harris vowed to fix the student loan system and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class – not a barrier to opportunity. Already, the Biden-Harris Administration has delivered life-changing relief to students and families. While Republican elected officials try every which way to block millions of their own constituents from receiving student debt relief – even proposing to get rid of the PSLF program altogether – President Biden and Vice President Harris are fighting to provide borrowers student debt relief and making higher education affordable.

Delivering Life-Changing Relief to Over 1 Million Public Servants

In 2007, Congress enacted bipartisan legislation creating PSLF to recognize the critical role public servants play in our communities and support them in their service. Under PSLF, people who dedicate at least 10 years of their careers to giving back to their communities – like teachers, firefighters, law enforcement officials, nurses, and servicemembers – can get relief on their student loans. However, the program was poorly implemented. Many public servants found out that they had spent years in the wrong student loan repayment plan or did not take out the right type of loan and were therefore ineligible for PSLF and denied forgiveness. Before the start of the Biden-Harris Administration, only 7,000 people had ever received forgiveness through PSLF and the rejection rate, in part due to administrative errors and difficult processes, was as high as 98% in some years. Public servants were also being told that, because they didn’t file the right forms years ago, there was nothing for them to do but keep paying their loans longer than the program requires.

Thanks to President Biden and Vice President Harris’ leadership, the Biden-Harris Administration has significantly improved the PSLF program to help more borrowers than ever before. This includes establishing and implementing new regulations to help borrowers earn more credit toward PSLF, simplifying criteria to help borrowers certify employment, creating fairer eligibility criteria, and providing borrowers the opportunity to apply for reconsideration of previous denials. The Biden-Harris Administration launched the Limited PSLF Waiver, providing public service workers affected by the pandemic with the opportunity to get PSLF credit for prior payments on their federal student loans regardless of repayment plan or loan type. To simplify the application process for borrowers, the Biden-Harris Administration made it so borrowers and employers can complete the entire PSLF application and submit required forms online, made it easier for borrowers to find qualifying employers and get necessary signatures verifying employment, and recently, announced new steps to allow borrowers to manage all aspects of their PSLF journey on StudentAid.gov.

Thanks to these improvements, as of today, over 1 million public service workers have been approved for debt cancellation through PSLF. The Department of Education today also released new state-by-state data showing how many borrowers have had their loans approved for cancellation under PSLF in each state under the Biden-Harris Administration.

Economic Benefits of Student Debt Relief for Public Service Workers

Today, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) published a new analysis underscoring that the Biden-Harris Administration’s student debt policies not only benefit borrowers, but also the entire economy.

The CEA highlights that PSLF has the potential to deliver considerable benefits to those who receive it – including the ability to buy a home, start a business, and improve overall financial health. In addition, the CEA analysis shows how the PSLF program strengthens the public sector by making it more feasible for students with postsecondary debt to pursue and remain in public service careers that are essential to our economy and communities.

Despite these benefits to the U.S. economy and hard-working Americans, Republican elected officials have tried to stop the Biden-Harris Administration every step of the way, and have even attempted to end PSLF altogether, which would block millions of dedicated public servants from receiving the student debt relief they have earned. President Biden and Vice President Harris will not stop fighting for our nation’s dedicated public servants.

Encouraging Public Servants to Take Advantage of the PSLF Program

Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is also announcing a series of new steps to encourage public servants across the nation to take advantage of the PSLF program.

A number of public sector unions, including the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), are amplifying today’s announcement through member-to-member outreach, social media campaigns, and more, and are encouraging people to sign up for PSLF:

  • For over a decade, AFT has been fighting to help teachers, nurses and school staff access PSLF. AFT ‘s student debt clinics, advocacy and outreach have resulted in members saving an estimated $400 million. AFT will continue to host weekly national student debt clinics, and help members apply for PSLF through a free union membership benefit called Summer, saving AFT members over $60,000 each
  • NEA will continue to help its members with the NEA Student Debt Navigator, a tool that provides 1-on-1 support for NEA’s members who need additional support with their PSLF application, or any other federal program related to student loans. Since the launch of the Student Debt Navigator, over 48,000 NEA members have signed up to receive support.
  • To celebrate this milestone, AFSCME will launch a new interactive map on its website, detailing PSLF forgiveness across the country based on Department of Education data. Additionally, AFSCME will update its online resources to facilitate applications for PSLF and create a social media toolkit its members can use to promote PSLF and forgiveness on their own social media platforms.
  • To encourage people to take advantage of the PSLF program, the Department of Education will send emails from President Biden to public servants who have received PSLF, encouraging them to share their stories to raise awareness about the benefits of the program. The Biden-Harris Administration will also share information about PSLF with federal employees to encourage more people to enroll in PSLF.
  • The Department of Education is reaching out to governors and mayors across the country to encourage state and local public service workers to take advantage of the PSLF program.

These new steps are in addition to previous actions by the Administration including working with over 15 major federal agencies to develop PSLF agency action plans. In implementing these plans, federal agencies have encouraged thousands of additional federal employees to take advantage of the PSLF program through extensive social media campaigns, principal-level engagement, engagement with stakeholder groups, press, and mass email communications.

Building On an Unparalleled Record of Student Debt Relief

Today’s announcement is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s broader set of actions to reduce the burden of student debt and ensure that student loans are not a barrier to educational and economic opportunity for students and families. President Biden and Vice President Harris secured a $900 increase to the maximum Pell Grant award – the largest increase in more than a decade.  Since taking office, the Biden-Harris Administration has approved through various actions $175 billion in student debt relief for nearly 5 million Americans, each of whom have been approved for an average of roughly $35,000 in student debt cancellation. These actions have benefitted borrowers in every state, territory, and congressional district in the United States.

This approved relief includes:

  • $74 billion for over 1 million borrowers through the PSLF program.
  • $56.5 billion for more than 1.4 million borrowers through Income-Driven Repayment, including the Saving on a Valuable Education SAVE plan. This includes administrative adjustments to income-driven repayment that brought borrowers closer to forgiveness and addressed longstanding problems due to past inaccuracies and the misuse of forbearance by loan servicers.
  • $28.7 billion for more than 1.6 million borrowers who were cheated by their schools, saw their institutions precipitously close, or are covered by related court settlements.
  • $16.2 billion for nearly 572,000 borrowers with a total and permanent disability.

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