Nearly 616,000 public-sector employees had their student loan debts forgiven after President Joe Biden’s administration temporarily loosened the rules on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program beginning in October 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE).
The agency said that a total of $42 billion in loans have been forgiven under the Biden-era PSLF rules—a total that represents around $68,000 worth of loans forgiven for each of the public-sector employees involved. Some 610,000 people already have had their student loans discharged, while another 6,000 will soon see their student debt erased.
The PSLF program normally allows for the forgiveness of all student loans after a 10-year period of qualifying public sector employment—as long as the public sector employee made their monthly payments through a qualifying loan repayment plan. The temporary Biden-era PSLF rules allowed for previously ineligible loan types and payment plans to count toward the 10 years of loan payments needed to qualify for full loan forgiveness through the program….