President Biden Announces the Cancellation of $5 Billion of Student Debt

NEW YORK CITY - The Biden administration approved on Friday student debt cancellation for another 74,000 borrowers across the United States — totaling around $5 billion.

Nearly 44,000 of the borrowers approved for student debt relief were teachers, nurses, firefighters and others who earned loan forgiveness after 10 years of public service.

Another 30,000 were people who have been repaying for 20 years but never got relief due to income-driven repayment plans.

"My administration is able to deliver relief to these borrowers — and millions more — because of the fixes we made to broken student loan programs that prevented borrowers from getting the relief they were entitled to under the law," said Biden, in a statement.

Student loan debt affects 45.3 million people in the United States. According to the Education Data Initiative, 67% of Hispanic and Latino student borrowers have student debt. Debt has had a significant impact on a borrower's financial decisions, for example, Hispanic and Latino borrowers were the most likely to delay getting married and having children due to student loan debt.

In fact, according to Excelencia in Education, a Latino student advocacy organization, has estimated that nearly half of all Latino borrowers would have their entire student debt forgiven under the plan. This translates to potentially millions of Latino students.

Biden focused a significant portion of his presidential campaign in canceling student loans. Despite facing challenges from the supreme court last year, over 3.7 million Americans have gotten their student debt canceled under the Biden administration.