How Biden is continuing to cancel student loan debt despite Supreme Court ruling

Although the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s signature student loan forgiveness program in late June, his administration has found ways to cancel more than $48 billion in debt since then.

The cancellations have come through existing federal student loan forgiveness programs, which are limited to specific categories of borrowers, such as public-sector workers, people defrauded by for-profit colleges, and borrowers who have paid for at least 20 years.

These programs are separate from the rejected forgiveness plan, which would have canceled about $430 billion of the $1.6 trillion of outstanding federal student loan debt all at one time.

The Biden administration has been granting student loan forgiveness through these existing programs on a rolling basis since coming into office and has discharged a total of $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million people to date.

That’s more student loan forgiveness than was granted under any other administration – in part due to the Biden administration’s efforts to temporarily expand some debt relief programs and to correct past administrative errors made to borrowers’ student loan accounts. The actions draw a stark contrast with the Trump administration, which tried to limit some of these forgiveness programs and slowed the processing of some applications.

But Biden’s Republican critics say that at least some of his debt relief actions are illegal and are an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Recounting past payments and fixing errors

Nearly $42 billion of federal student loan debt has been canceled for almost 855,000 borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans – largely due to the Biden administration’s effort to recount borrowers’ past payments and fix what officials have called “past administrative failures.”

Borrowers enrolled…