The Biden administration is temporarily relaxing the rules for a student loan forgiveness program that has been criticized for its notoriously complex requirements – a change that could offer debt relief to thousands of teachers, social workers, military members and other public servants.
The Education Department said Wednesday it will drop some of the toughest requirements around Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that was launched in 2007 to steer more college graduates into public service but, since then, has helped just 5,500 borrowers get their loans erased.
Congress created the program as a reward for college students who go into public service. As long as they made 10 years of payments on their federal student loans, the program promised to erase the remainder.
But more than 90% of applicants have been rejected. After making a decade of payments, many borrowers have found that they have the wrong type of federal loan or repayment plan to be eligible for the program. Thousands have ended up stuck with debt they thought would be cleared.
Under the temporary changes, those borrowers will now be eligible to get their loans erased.