President Biden Announces New Round of Student Loan Forgiveness to Address Unsustainable Debt

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday outlined a new round of federal student loan forgiveness to address the “unsustainable debt” borrowers accumulate to complete college.

The announcement comes as borrowers prepare to resume payments after a three-year pause that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and Biden tries to make good on his election promises on debt relief as he seeks re-election.

The Democratic president’s latest measure will help 125,000 borrowers by erasing $9 billion of debt through existing programs. In total, 3.6 million borrowers will have seen their $127 billion in debt erased since Biden took office.

“We’re not done yet,” Biden said in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

He promised to help alleviate the burden of student debt when he ran for president, and has come under pressure to press ahead even though his original plan was struck down by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.

Biden said the decision was responsible for “snatching thousands of dollars of student debt relief from the hands of millions of Americans that were about to change their lives.”

The president has turned to a variety of programs to reduce debt, such as the SAVE Plan announced last year, which reduces payments by tying them to borrowers’ income.

“My administration is doing everything we can to relieve student debt for as many as we can, as fast as we can,” Biden said.

“While a college degree remains the ticket to a better life, that ticket has become prohibitively expensive. “Americans saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for a college degree has become commonplace,” he stated.

Some of Biden’s efforts have involved bolstering existing programs, such as utility loan forgiveness.