WASHINGTON —The only thing stopping millions of Americans from receiving the Biden Administration’s one-time student debt relief is a lawsuit brought by Republican officials and special interests, according to Biden. On Saturday, he said on social media, "It's simple: our Administration is confident that our student debt relief program is fully legal. And we're not backing down that easy."
New data comes as elected officials and special interests actively block many of their own constituents from getting relief, according to a statement from the White House.
On Friday, the Biden administration released new data showing the number of people in each state who applied for student debt relief or were automatically eligible for relief. 228,000 in Kansas applied for and were deemed automatically eligible.
These borrowers could be benefitting from the Administration’s program right now were it not for lawsuits brought by elected officials and special interests, according to the Biden Administration.
In August, President Biden announced his Administration’s plan to provide up to $20,000 in debt relief for borrowers earning less than $125,000 per year. The Administration’s program aimed to protect borrowers most at risk of delinquency or default as a result of hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic when the payment pause ends.
In the less than four weeks that the application was available, 26 million people either applied for debt relief or had already provided sufficient information to the Department of Education (Department) to be deemed eligible for relief. Over 16 million of those borrowers’ applications were fully approved by the Department and sent to loan servicers. However, in November of last year– less than a month after the application was first released – the Department was required to stop accepting applications as a result of lawsuits brought by opponents of the program. Loan servicers were thus prevented from discharging any debt.
Overall, more than 40 million borrowers would qualify for the Biden Administration’s debt relief program. Nearly 90% of the benefits of the relief going to out-of-school borrowers would go to those earning less than $75,000 per year. Millions of those borrowers could be experiencing the benefits of that relief today – were it not for lawsuits brought on by elected officials in some of their own states. For more information, visit StudentAid.gov/debtrelief.
Click here to see a full breakdown of how many people applied for debt relief and whose applications were approved by the Department before the Administration was blocked from discharging debt, rounded to the nearest thousand.