Biden approves $4.5 bn in student debt relief as vote nears

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden announced Thursday further student debt relief for public servants — amounting to around $4.5 billion — with just over two weeks to go until the presidential election.

The action affects about 60,000 borrowers across the country, said the White House, touting Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s efforts to improve loan forgiveness since taking office.

Harris is the Democratic nominee in November’s White House race, running against Republican former president Donald Trump.

The announcement comes as households feel the weight of higher costs of living since the Covid-19 pandemic, with voters citing the economy as a crucial concern in polls.

Biden said in a statement that with the latest move, more than one million people have had their debt cancelled under Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

The promise of the program — supporting teachers, nurses and others — involved student debt forgiveness after 10 years of public service and 10 years of payments.

“But for too long, the government failed to live up to its commitments, and only 7,000 people had ever received forgiveness,” Biden said.

“I will never stop working to make higher education affordable,” he added.

Harris said in her own statement that higher education “should be a pathway to economic opportunity — not a lifetime of debt.”

She, too, promised to “continue our work to lower costs, make higher education more affordable, and relieve the burden of student debt.”

Biden has embarked on efforts to cancel student debt for millions of Americans, after a student loan payment freeze instituted by Trump during the coronavirus pandemic.

Americans hold $1.6 trillion in student loans, and some end up repaying them over decades as they start jobs and families.