By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that his administration has approved an additional $9 billion in student debt relief for 125,000 borrowers.
Biden has said he will pursue new measures to provide student loan relief to Americans after the Supreme Court blocked his plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.
The president said the latest announcement brought the total approved debt cancellation by the his administration to $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million Americans.
"This kind of relief is life changing for individuals and their families. But it's good for our economy as a whole as well," he told reporters.
According to a White House fact sheet, the new measures include:
- $5.2 billion in additional debt relief for 53,000 borrowers under Public Service Loan Forgiveness
programs
- nearly $2.8 billion in new debt relief for some 51,000 borrowers through fixes to "income-driven repayment,"
which the White House says are borrowers who made 20 years or more of payments "but never got the relief they were entitled to."
- $1.2 billion for nearly 22,000 borrowers with a disability who have been identified and approved for discharge through a data match with the Social Security Administration.
"My administration is doing everything it can to deliver student debt relief to as many as we can, as fast as we can," Biden said.