Biden is showcasing student loan relief efforts as he campaigns in California
LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Joe Biden is putting a spotlight on his efforts to cancel billions of dollars in student debt as he ramps up his reelection campaign.
Biden, who is in the middle of a three-day campaign through California, announced Wednesday that his administration will automatically cancel federal student loans for nearly 153,000 borrowers as part of a new repayment plan that offers a faster path to forgiveness.
The administration on Wednesday began sending email notifications to some borrowers who will benefit from what the White House has called the SAVE program. The cancellations were originally due to start in July, but last month the government said they would be completed almost six months ahead of schedule, in February.
“Starting today, people enrolled in our SAVE student loan repayment plan who have paid their loans for 10 years and borrowed $12,000 or less will have their first round debt forgiven,” Biden posted on social media on Wednesday. “That’s 150,000 Americans and counting. And we aim to relieve even more of the burden.”
The first round of forgiveness from the SAVE plan will free up $1.2 billion in loans. Borrowers will receive emails with a message from Biden informing them that “your federal student loans will be forgiven in whole or in part because you qualify for early loan forgiveness under my administration’s SAVE plan.”
The president is expected to highlight the SAVE plan during a speech in Culver City, California, before heading to San Francisco later Wednesday for more campaign fundraising.
Biden wrote in the email that he has heard from “countless people who have told me that easing the burden of their student debt will allow them to support themselves and their families, buy their first home, start a small business start and move on with life. plans they have put on hold.”
More than 7.5 million people have registered for the new repayment plan.
The president emphasized his efforts to help middle-class Americans at a campaign fundraiser in Beverly Hills on Tuesday night and warned that a November victory by former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential front-runner, could lead to a nationwide abortion ban. There have been more Republican attempts to undo the health insurance program started in the Biden administration and policies that would disproportionately help the wealthy.
He asked his supporters to help win a second term so he could “get the job done” in enacting an agenda that benefits American workers.
Borrowers are eligible for cancellation if they are enrolled in the SAVE plan, originally borrowed $12,000 or less to attend college and have made at least 10 years of payments. Those who withdrew more than $12,000 are eligible for cancellation, but on a longer timeline. For every $1,000 you borrow above $12,000, an additional year of payments is added on top of the ten years.
The maximum repayment period is limited to 20 years for those with only a student loan and 25 years for those with a student loan.
“With today’s announcement, we are once again sending a clear message to borrowers with low balances: If you’ve been making payments for 10 years, you’ve done your part and deserve relief,” said Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.
Biden announced the new repayment plan last year, in addition to a separate plan to forgive up to $20,000 in loans for millions of Americans. The Supreme Court has rejected his plan for widespread forgiveness, but the repayment plan has so far escaped that level of legal scrutiny. Unlike his mass cancellation proposal — which had never been done before — the repayment plan is a variation on existing income-based plans that Congress created more than a decade ago.
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Binkley reported from Washington.