OAN Staff James Meyers
11:10 AM – Monday, January 13, 2025
With just a week until inauguration day, President Joe Biden announced the cancellation of student debt for another 150,000 borrowers.
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“Today’s announcement includes additional relief for borrowers misled and cheated by their institutions, borrowers with disabilities, as well as additional loan forgiveness for public servants,” said Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.
The latest announcement now makes it more than five million Americans that Biden has relieved of student debt, which is more than any president in history.
Biden used a loophole by utilizing programs that were already in place before he took office.
His administration expanded those programs and used them to their highest extent, moving on with cancellation even after the Supreme Court rejected Biden’s plan for a new forgiveness policy in 2023.
“My Administration has taken historic action to reduce the burden of student debt, hold bad actors accountable, and fight on behalf of students across the country,” Biden said in a written statement.
In total, the administration says it has waived a staggering $183.6 billion in student loans.
Meanwhile, the cancellations are expected to end when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump hasn’t fully detailed his student loan policies but previously called the cancellations “vile” and illegal.
The latest round is funded through a program known as borrower defense, which allows students to get their loans canceled if they’re cheated or misled by their colleges they attended.
It was created in 1994 but rarely used until a wave of high-profile for-profit college scandals took place during the Obama administration.
A smaller number of relief came through a program for borrowers with disabilities and through Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which was created in 2007 and offers to erase all remaining debt for borrowers in a government or nonprofit job who make 10 years of monthly payments.
Additionally, most of Monday’s borrower defense cancellations were for students who attended multiple non-operational colleges owned by Center for Excellence in Higher Education, including CollegeAmerica, Stevens-Henager College, and Independence University.
These are based on previous reports of findings that those schools lied to students about their employment options and the terms of private loans.
Only 7,000 borrowers had gotten their loans canceled through Public Service Loan Forgiveness before the Biden administration took office.
Meanwhile, Republicans have suggested that reversing Biden’s changes will be a main priority.
This month, Representative Virginia Foxx, (R-N.C.), issued a report criticizing Biden’s expansion of borrower defense, saying he “tried to stretch every possible law” to fulfill his campaign promises.
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