(NEXSTAR) – Following a sweeping move to forgive $3.9 billion in federal student loan debt for 208,000 borrowers defrauded by ITT Technical Institute earlier this week, the Biden administration has now approved $32 billion in loan forgiveness.
The loan discharge, announced Tuesday, applies to any federal student loans borrowers received to attend ITT between January 2005 to the institute’s closure in September 2016. The Department of Education had previously decided to forgive student loans for borrowers who attended ITT due to the school’s “widespread and pervasive misrepresentations related to the ability of students to get a job or transfer credits.” ITT had already been accused of lying about the “programmatic accreditation” of its associate nursing degree.
With this latest discharge, the Biden administration has approved nearly $32 billion in student loan forgiveness for over 1.6 million borrowers.
Students defrauded by their school have received the most relief. One million borrowers have received $13 billion in debt discharge under the Biden administration. This includes forgiveness for students of ITT, Corinthian Colleges, Marinello Schools of Beauty, DeVry University, Westwood College, and the Minnesota School of Business/Globe University’s criminal justice programs. If you believe your school misled you or engaged in misconduct, here’s how to file a report with the Federal Student Aid office.
Another $9.6 billion has been forgiven for roughly 175,000 borrowers who qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Commonly referred to as PSLF, this program provides loan relief for those working in public service after they’ve made a set number of payments on their qualifying loans.
A temporary waiver set to expire at the end of October has suspended some of the program’s requirements, expanding debt relief access to borrowers who may not have qualified before. As many as nine million public service workers may qualify for PSLF, a recent report found. Here’s how to determine if you qualify.
More than 425,000 borrowers have received $9 billion in student debt relief through total and permanent disability discharges, the Education Department said earlier this week. To identify eligible borrowers, officials use existing data from the Social Security Administration. Details about how to show that you qualify for a TPD loan discharge can be found here.
The federal student loan payment pause is set to expire in less than two weeks. While it is clear President Joe Biden is nearing some sort of decision on student loans, it’s not clear what that decision will entail or when he will announce it.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Tuesday that he could not outline any of President Biden’s potential plans regarding federal student loans but that “borrowers will know directly and soon from us when a decision is made.”