President Joe Biden said Friday that 22 million people have signed up for student loan relief.
“Guys, it’s less than five minutes,” Biden said, speaking at Delaware State University, a historically black college in Dover. “It’s easy to apply when hanging out with friends at home or watching a movie. Most of it is on their phones. It’s easy.”
Application officially opened Second but was released as a beta testing October 14. Biden said the White House took this route to avoid the technical glitches experienced when he and President Barack Obama launched the Affordable Care Act website.
Biden campaigned on the promise of student loan forgiveness. In August, he announced that federal student loan borrowers earning less than $125,000 or households earning less than $250,000 would be eligible for a forgiveness of up to $10,000. Pell Grant recipients are eligible for debt forgiveness of up to $20,000.
“Over 40 million Americans in total benefit from this relief,” Biden said. “For out-of-school borrowers, nearly 90% of the relief money will go to people earning less than $75,000 a year. Let me be clear: Not a dime, not a cent will count. to the highest income. It will go to those who really need it.”
Eligible borrowers owe more than $1.7 trillion in total, a much larger number than auto and credit card debt. Biden said he received more than 10,000 letters from students thanking him for the executive order.
Some Republicans questioned the legality of the executive order, but trials against the order were dismissed Thursday at both the state and federal levels, allowing the pardon to continue. . Borrowers who have applied may be be forgiven as early as Sunday.
“They fought us in court,” Biden said. “But just yesterday the state court and the Supreme Court said no, we’re on Biden’s side.”
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Thursday turn down a challenge to the show brought by a group of Wisconsin taxpayers, and in Missouri, a federal judge brought a case brought by six Republican-led states. Federal government lawyers had previously agreed to delay student loan disbursements until October 23, to allow time for legal challenges to proceed.
Speaking in Dover, Biden mocked Republicans who supported $2 trillion in tax cuts under former President Donald Trump and personally received pandemic relief funds but did not support them. student debt relief.
“I don’t want to hear that from MAGA Republicans, officials who once owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars in pandemic relief loans, who were forgiven, who who is now attacking me for helping middle-class Americans,” Biden said.
He specifically called Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. She and her husband received a $180,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan, and the congresswoman criticized the student loan scheme.
