Hundreds of thousands of borrowers who have been paying their student loans for decades will have their debt canceled, the Biden administration announced Friday.
More than 804,000 borrowers will be impacted by the $39 billion in student-debt relief, officials said Friday.
The announcement comes after years of concern from borrowers and advocates that borrowers would pay their student loans for decades, despite programs that allow borrowers to have their debt forgiven after 20 or 25 years of monthly payments. The Department of Education announced last year that it would review borrowers’ accounts for periods that should have been counted as progress toward forgiveness, but often weren’t due to servicer practices.
Borrowers who are eligible for relief are those that the agency determined have at least 20 years of qualifying payments.
“For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress towards forgiveness,” Miguel Cardona, the Secretary of Education, said in a statement announcing the relief. “By fixing past administrative failures, we are ensuring everyone gets the forgiveness they deserve.”
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