The Biden administration is preparing new proposals aiming to reduce or cancel student loan debt for millions of borrowers, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN, another attempt to address a key issue facing voters before November’s election.
The expected proposals come nearly 10 months after the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s original student loan forgiveness program, which aimed to deliver up to $20,000 of relief to millions of borrowers struggling with outstanding debt. At the time, the president vowed to pursue another student relief approach by using a different legal authority.
The Department of Education soon began working on a different path relying on a different legal authority through the Higher Education Act of 1965. The new proposals are likely to be more targeted than the previous program would have been, laying out specific groups of borrowers who could get student debt cancellation.
Through the expected new proposals, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the administration is aiming to ease student loan debt for borrowers experiencing hardship in their daily lives that would prevent them from being able to pay back their loans, one of the sources said. It will also help ease the burden on borrowers who have seen their interest significantly accrue over time, that source said.
The president is expected to lay out the new proposals on Monday, the same day he’s scheduled to travel to Madison, Wisconsin, to discuss lowering costs for Americans, the sources said.
Once a proposed rule is announced, it could still take quite some time to go into effect. The proposal would need to go through a public comment period before the administration could issue the final rule.
But it is possible that pieces of the new regulations could begin to…
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