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After making what it called “significant fixes” to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, the Biden administration on Thursday is announcing the approval of $4.5 billion in student loan forgiveness for 60,000 borrowers who work in public service jobs.
The PSLF was established by Congress in 2007 under then-President George W. Bush, to allow those working full time in public service jobs for 10 years who had made 10 years of student loan payments to have their loans forgiven. But as of four years ago, only about 7,000 people nationwide had received loan forgiveness under the program, due in part to its complicated rules and a lack of federal oversight.
“Teachers, first responders, service members, sometimes have student debt and choose to get back to their communities or their country and accept low paying jobs, and student debt is often a real obstacle in that,” James Kvaal, Under Secretary of the Department of Education, told the Capital-Star. “So Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program in a bipartisan way, but it was never implemented.” He said some who were eligible for the program were in the wrong repayment plan, or some didn’t file the right paperwork at the right time.
In 2021, the Department of Education (DOE) overhauled the PSLF program, which made more people eligible for forgiveness sooner. Since that time, 44,150 Pennsylvania public service workers have had more than $3.15 billion of student loans canceled, according to a fact sheet from the DOE, with a total of $175 billion forgiven for more than 4.8 million people nationwide.
For those who may have applied for PSLF before and been rejected, Kvaal encourages them to reapply. And while some other student loan forgiveness programs the Biden administration has put forth have been blocked in the courts, the PSLF is an established program with bipartisan support, Kvaal said. The DOE has been working on streamlining the application process, he added, so that it’s easier for eligible borrowers to apply and track their status.
And public service workers don’t have to wait until they’re past the 10-year mark to apply, Kvaal said, if they’re in a job that qualifies them for the program and plan to stay there, they can apply and track their progress on the DOE website until they’ve completed the requirements.
“We want to make sure that the student loan benefits are not just promises on paper, but they’re something that actually reaches people who need it,” Kvaal said.