Biden, keen to shore up waning support among young people ahead
of the November presidential election, had pledged last year to
find other avenues for tackling debt relief after the Supreme
Court in June blocked his broader plan to cancel $430 billion in
student loan debt.
Biden said beneficiaries of the newest measures are people
enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, who
had received an average of over $35,000 in debt cancellation.
They include teachers, nurses, law enforcement officials and
other public service workers, or borrowers who were approved for
relief through other changes, the White House said.
"Today’s announcement comes on top of the significant progress
we’ve made for students and borrowers over the past three
years," Biden said in a statement. "I will never stop working to
cancel student debt – no matter how many times Republican
elected officials try to stop us."
Wednesday's announcement brings total debt relief approved by
the Biden administration to $167 billion.
The issue remains high on the agenda of younger voters, many of
whom have concerns about Biden's foreign policy on the war in
Gaza and fault him for not achieving greater debt forgiveness.
The campaign of former President Donald Trump, Biden's
Republican challenger in the White House race, in March
criticized the student loan cancellation as a bailout that was
done "without a single act of Congress."
Republicans have called Biden's student loan forgiveness
approach an overreach of his authority and an unfair benefit to
college-educated borrowers while other borrowers received no
such relief.
As of the end of 2023, 43.2 million U.S. student loan recipients
had over $1.6 trillion in outstanding loans, according to the
website of the Federal Student Aid website, an office of the
U.S. Department of Education. Higher education debt has tripled
since the 2008 financial crisis.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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