The Biden administration has forgiven another $4.8 billion in student loan debt, with critics saying it’s unfair for taxpayers to pay for other people’s loans.
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it would forgive an additional $4.8 billion in student loan debt for 80,300 borrowers, bringing the total that taxpayer burden to $132 billion.
“I won’t back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need to reach their dreams,” President Joe Biden said in a Dec. 6 statement, in which he made clear that his administration is undeterred by the recent Supreme Court decision to block a wide-ranging initiative to cancel up to $20,000 in debt per student.
“In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision on our student debt relief plan, we are continuing to pursue an alternative path to deliver student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible as quickly as possible,” the president added.
The latest action brings the total number of borrowers whose student loans have been forgiven to over 3.6 million.
“This level of debt relief is unparalleled, and we have no intention of slowing down,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cordona said in a statement.
The latest round of student loan forgiveness includes $2.6 billion for 34,400 borrowers under the public service loan forgiveness (PSLF) scheme and $2.2 billion for 46,000 borrowers under the one-time payment adjustment for income-driven repayment (IDR) plans.
The announcement drew mixed reactions online, with critical comments including calls for the Biden administration to “stop giving out free money to people that willingly took out debt to buy useless degrees.”
Many critics of President Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme have panned the debt wipeout as unfair to people who sacrificed to pay off their student loans or never racked them up in the first place—but now are being forced to foot the bill for other people’s debts.
Debt Forgiveness In Focus
Amid the president’s long-standing pledge to erase student debt, the Biden administration in August 2022 unveiled a plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student debt per person for about 40 million borrowers.
At the time, the White House said that President Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme would cost $24 billion per year, or $240 billion over a 10-year period. Projections by the Penn Wharton Budget Model and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget put the figure at between $330 billion and $500 billion over a decade, respectively.
By Tom Ozimek
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Biden Press Release: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Nearly $5 Billion in Additional Student Debt Relief
