After tens of billions of dollars in cancellations of student loan debt targeting groups including former students at defunct, for-profit college chains that engaged in deceptive practices targeting students, President Biden is “expected” to announce a more all-encompassing cancellation of student loan debt on Wednesday, reports indicate.
“Five sources tell NBC News that President Biden will announce a decision on student loan debt forgiveness as soon as [Wednesday],” MSNBC anchor Katy Tur said on television Tuesday. “Three sources tell NBC News Biden is expected to extend the pause on repayments for several more months while forgiving loans… for people who make $125,000 a year or less.” The reported expectation is that Biden is set to announce the forgiveness of $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower for those covered by the plan.
“Advocates and allies expect Biden to extend the pause on student loan repayment for at least four additional months through December 2022, while also announcing some measure of debt forgiveness for borrowers whose income falls below a certain threshold,” as Bloomberg summarized what Biden was evidently preparing to do this week. “From day one, we’ve been really focused on making sure we’re protecting our students and our borrowers,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said on NBC’s Meet the Press over the weekend. “We know August 31 is a date that many people are waiting to hear something from. We’ve been talking daily about this. And I can tell you that [the] American people will hear within the next week or so from the president.” The date Cardona cited is when the student loan repayment pause that was instituted towards the early stages of the pandemic is set to expire.
POLITICO, meanwhile, also reported Tuesday on the student loan plan Biden was preparing to unveil this week. The publication said the president was “likely” to unveil an initiative Wednesday that would include the forgiveness of up to $10,000 for certain individuals holding student loan debt. Previous student loan debt cancellations by the Biden administration include the automatic elimination of a collective total of $3.9 billion in student loan debt held by some 208,000 individuals who borrowed the money for attendance at ITT Technical Institute (ITT), which closed. The debt that was covered by the cancellation announcement was the entirety of what was left in connection to students attending ITT Technical Institute from January 1, 2005, through its closing in 2016. Nearly $32 billion in debt for 1.6 million borrowers was covered by previous student debt cancellation announcements.
