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U.S. Department of Education Fully Approves 16 Million Student Debt Relief Applications

By:
S.J. Steinhardt
Published Date:
Jan 27, 2023

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The Biden Administration released a list of 16.486 million borrowers whose applications were fully approved by the Department of Education and sent to loan servicers. They “could be benefitting from the Administration’s program right now were it not for lawsuits brought by elected officials and special interests,” according to a  White House statement.

This list, broken out by states and territories, also included 26 million people who applied for or are automatically eligible for student debt relief. New York state has 998,000 people with fully approved applications sent to loan servicers for discharge and 1,549,000 people who applied or were deemed automatically eligible for relief.

The Administration announced its loan forgiveness plan in August. It called for the cancellation of up to $20,000 in debt for recipients of Pell Grant recipients with U.S. Department of Education (DOE) loans and up to $10,000 in debt for non-Pell Grant recipients. Eligible recipients of the relief must make less than $125,000 as an individual or $250,000 as a household.

Since then, the loan forgiveness plan has been subject to legal challenges. In November, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit  in St. Louis indefinitely blocked its implementation. In a separate lawsuit earlier that month, a federal judge in Texas declared it unlawful under the separation of powers doctrine.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case on Feb. 28.