The Biden administration announced Thursday it would forgive $1.2 billion in student debt held by 35,000 public service workers.
President Joe Biden will have forgiven $168.5 billion across 4.76 million student loan borrowers following the most recent round of debt relief, according to the Department of Education. The billions in debt relief comes as the president lags in the polls behind former President Donald Trump and as he faces calls from within his party to drop out of the presidential election due to perceived electoral weakness.
Some Republicans have criticized the Biden administration’s debt forgiveness programs as a ploy to provide financial incentives to vote for them.
“It’s clear there is vote buying going on at a scale we’ve never seen before,” Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said during a CNN interview in May. “Citizens understand those are like free election payoffs. Those are like ‘Hey, folks, please vote for us because we’re relieving your debt.’ At what point does it cross over from programs like student debt [forgiveness] to just vote-buying?”
The White House, however, contends that student debt relief is a useful mechanism to “ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” according to a Thursday press release.
Debt forgiven under Thursday’s order will apply to beneficiaries who qualify under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, a nearly two-decade-old initiative that was expanded under the Biden administration to make it easier for government employees to qualify for relief, according to the Washington Free Beacon. Nonprofit employees, teachers, nurses, law enforcement officials and first responders are among those covered by the PSLF, Axios reported.
Prior to the Biden administration, only about 7,000 people had received relief through the PSLF since 2007, according to Axios. That total has surged to 946,000 under Biden.
Though the Supreme Court blocked Biden’s flagship student loan relief program in June 2023, the president has still managed to cancel billions of dollars in debt by diverting overhauling existing programs like the PSLF, CNN reported.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
(Featured image credit: Screen Capture/CSPAN)
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