Biden Wipes Out Another $1 Billion In Student Debt As He Fights To Stay In 2024 Race

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 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,”