President Joe Biden will announce another wave of federal student loan forgiveness on Wednesday, according to a White House official, as borrowers brace for payments to restart.
The announcement comes as borrowers brace for payments to restart after a three-year pause that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and Biden tries to fulfill his campaign promises on debt relief as he runs for reelection.
The Democratic president’s latest step will help 125,000 borrowers by erasing $9 billion in debt through existing programs. In total, 3.6 million borrowers will have had $127 billion in debt wiped out since Biden took office.
“We’re not done yet,” Biden said in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.
He pledged to help alleviate the burden of student debt while running for president, and he’s been under pressure to follow through even though his original plan was overturned by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Biden said the decision was responsible for “snatching from the hands of millions of Americans thousands of dollars of student debt relief that was about to change their lives.”
He has been relying on a patchwork of different programs to chip away at debt, such as the SAVE Plan announced last year, which lowers payments by tying them to borrowers’ income.
