President Joe Biden has unveiled additional plans for student loan forgiveness that could provide relief on federal education debts for 30 million Americans.
New plans announced by the White House on Monday expand on the Biden administration’s ongoing plans to push down the level of collective student debt nationwide. That currently stands at $1.6 trillion, according to the most recent data collected by the Federal National Reserve.
The announcement is part of Biden’s renewed push to broaden federal student loan forgiveness and affordability in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. In June last year, the Supreme Court struck down his initial plan, a $400 billion proposal to cancel or reduce student loan debts that a majority of justices said required congressional approval.
“These historic steps reflect President Biden’s determination that we cannot allow student debt to leave students worse off than before they went to college,” U.S. Undersecretary of Education James Kvaal said in a statement. Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment via email outside of normal working hours.
The president will share additional details on the plans during a visit to Madison, Wisconsin, home to the University of Madison-Wisconsin, today, the White House has confirmed.
The updated plans are an attempt to survive likely legal challenges that saw Biden’s previous plans laid to waste. The Department for Education is using the Higher Education Act (HEA) as its justification for enacting the latest plans, whereas the former plan was based on the post-9/11 Heroes Act. Under the Heroes Act, the president has the authority to revise student loan programs during times of national emergency—in this case, the coronavirus pandemic.
