Announcement Comes as Right-Wing Politicians Aim to Eliminate Public Service Loan Forgiveness Under Project 2025 and Leave More Than 3.6 Million Vital Public Service Workers Drowning in Student Debt
October 17, 2024 | WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced the approval of $4.5 billion in additional student debt relief for more than 60,000 public service workers—including educators, nurses, servicemembers, and first responders. Today’s announcement underscores the unprecedented progress the Biden-Harris Administration has made in fixing underlying problems in key student debt relief programs, including the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF), and ensuring that millions of working families are able to access the debt relief they are entitled to under the law.
Today’s announcement brings the total student loan debt relief approved by the Administration to more than $175 billion for more than 4.8 million Americans, including $74 billion for more than 1 million public service workers under PSLF.
In response, Aissa Canchola Bañez, Policy Director of SBPC, issued the following statement:
“The Biden-Harris Administration has improved more than a million lives by ensuring the bipartisan Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program lives up to its promise and that public service workers—teachers, nurses, servicemembers, and first responders—are able to get the relief they deserve. Meanwhile, right-wing politicians attack student loan borrowers and seek to promote their extreme Project 2025 agenda, which would eliminate PSLF and leave millions of working families drowning in debt.
“For too long, under the Trump Administration, public service workers were wrongfully denied PSLF relief and cheated out of their legal rights. Today, thanks to President Biden and Vice President Harris, PSLF has finally begun to provide the pathway to relief that millions of public servants have been counting on. We applaud the Biden-Harris Administration for today’s historic announcement and continuing the fight to ensure debt relief becomes a reality for all borrowers.”
Background
Prior to the Biden-Harris Administration taking office, only 7,000 public service workers had ever benefited from the PSLF program. Under the Trump Administration, then-Secretary Betsy DeVos rejected 99 percent of public service workers who applied for student debt relief and actively worked to push debt relief out of reach. In 2018, the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) in partnership with AFT launched a joint investigation into allegations of rampant mismanagement and industry abuses undermining the PSLF program. These findings eventually led to the Biden-Harris Administration’s sweeping changes and systemic fixes that have helped to fulfill the promise of debt relief made to millions of public service workers and ensure the program works.
The announcement comes on the heels of the release of SBPC’s groundbreaking new analysis quantifying the economic toll of Project 2025 on millions of student loan borrowers working in public service fields across the country. The analysis focuses on the state-by-state economic harm that Project 2025 threatens to unleash on public service workers by eliminating the PSLF program.
According to the analysis, if proponents of Project 2025 are successful in eliminating PSLF, more than 3.6 million educators, social workers, nurses, servicemembers, first responders, and other public service workers currently in the pipeline for relief will be denied relief and saddled with $250 billion in additional student loan debt.
SBPC’s analysis provides a nationwide snapshot of how eliminating PSLF will harm public service workers across each state. The ten hardest-hit states—those that would be home to the most public service workers trapped in debt—include Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan. See the analysis in the form of an interactive map here.
The right-wing Project 2025 is a 900-plus page manifesto filled with destructive policies that will wreak havoc on working families—including the 45 million Americans currently crushed under the weight of the student debt crisis. Along with calling for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, Project 2025 calls for:
- Eliminating time-and-employment-based student debt cancellation, which includes the PSLF program that provides public service workers debt relief after 10 years of public service and Income-Driven Repayment cancellation, which provides debt relief after 20 years of repayment.
- Eliminating the Biden-Harris Administration’s SAVE Repayment Plan—the most affordable repayment option available to borrowers—which will make student loans significantly more expensive for millions of student loan borrowers and their families.
- Making it even harder for students, including servicemembers, veterans, and their families, to seek debt relief after being defrauded by their school.
- Completely privatizing the federal student loan program, which would force students and families to navigate the risky private student loan market with less consumer protections.
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About Student Borrower Protection Center
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) is a nonprofit organization focused on eliminating the burden of student debt for millions of Americans. We engage in advocacy, policymaking, and litigation strategy to rein in industry abuses, protect borrowers’ rights, and advance racial and economic justice.
Learn more at protectborrowers.org or follow SBPC on Twitter @theSBPC.