The State of Student Loan Forgiveness: October 2024
Andrew Gillen
October 17, 2024
A new court injunction is blocking any forgiveness under the forthcoming Higher Education Act forgiveness plan.
The latest batch of forgiven loans brings the total to $175 billion for 4.8 million borrowers.
Mass student loan forgiveness is terrible policy (see this report for a comprehensive list of reasons), but that hasn’t stopped the Biden administration from trying to forge ahead. While the Supreme Court overturned the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan, every few weeks, the Biden administration announces another batch of loans that have been forgiven. In fact, the administration recently celebrated that since taking office, it has succeeded in forgiving $175 billion of student loans for 4.8 million borrowers by transferring the financial burden from the students who took out the loans to taxpayers who did not. And they aren’t going to stop—the administration’s spokeswoman declared that “President Biden has vowed to use every tool available to cancel student debt for as many borrowers as possible, as quickly as possible.” And President Biden himself stated, “I will never stop working to cancel student debt—no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us.”
