78,000 student-loan borrowers in public service are getting $6 billion in debt wiped out after facing 'logistical troubles and trap doors'

President Joe Biden.

MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

• Biden announced nearly $6 billion in student-debt relief for 78,000 borrowers in public service.
• Biden will also send emails to another 380,000 borrowers that they're on track for the same relief within one or two years.
• The relief is a result of fixes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Student-loan forgiveness is on the way for thousands more borrowers who have worked in public service.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden's White House announced that it would be canceling nearly $6 billion in student debt for 78,000 borrowers in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which forgiveness debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years of qualifying payments.

According to a press release from the Education Department, this latest batch of relief results from fixes to PSLF, including borrowers who benefited from the limited-time waiver that expired in 2022 to allow past payments that previously didn't qualify for relief to count toward forgiveness progress.

"For too long, our nation's teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters, and other public servants faced logistical troubles and trap doors when they tried to access the debt relief they were entitled to under the law," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. "With this announcement, the Biden-Harris Administration is showing how we're taking further steps not only to fix those trap doors, but also to expand opportunity to many more Americans."

"Today, more than 100 times more borrowers are eligible for PSLF than there were at the beginning of the Administration," Cardona said.

Biden will email impacted borrowers next week to congratulate them on their relief. Biden will also email an additional 380,000 borrowers in public service who are within one or two years of loan forgiveness through PSLF.

"If you continue your career in public service, you're on track to get your eligible student loans forgiven in less than two years through Public Service Loan Forgiveness," one version of Biden's letter, reviewed by Business Insider, said.

A senior administration official told reporters on a Wednesday press call that Biden is directly communicating with borrowers because he wants them to be aware of the benefits PSLF can offer, along with the impacts debt relief can have on Americans and families.

This relief comes on the heels of a range of targeted actions the Education Department has implemented over the past year to get more relief to borrowers. For example, the department announced in February that 153,000 borrowers would get $1.2 billion in debt relief — a result of a new provision of the new SAVE income-driven repayment plan that shortens the timeline for borrowers to see debt cancellation.

Still, many other borrowers are struggling to navigate the return to repayment that began in October after an over three-year payment pause. The Education Department found that all four major federal student-loan servicers failed to send on-time billing statements to borrowers, and it released an accountability framework in December to ensure oversight over the servicers.

But strained funding at Federal Student Aid is still leaving both borrowers and servicers without the resources they need to navigate the return to repayment effectively.

Meanwhile, the Education Department is also in the process of implementing a broader form of debt relief using the Higher Education Act of 1965 — its second try at relief after the Supreme Court struck its first plan down. The department is expected to release a draft text for the new relief in the coming months.

Did you receive student-loan forgiveness? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

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