The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which the George W. Bush administration created in 2007 to encourage people to work for the government and nonprofits, has grown significantly during Joe Biden’s presidency. The Conversation asked economist William Chittenden to explain what this student loan program is, who is eligible and what has changed lately.

How does the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program work? To qualify, borrowers must currently work for the government or a nonprofit.

Americans getting this debt relief include many nurses, teachers, first responders, Peace Corps volunteers and social workers.

Once enrolled, borrowers can have their remaining student loan balance forgiven if they remain employed in public service and make 10 years of monthly on-time payments.

The government can cancel only the balance of the direct loans the Department of Education makes through this program. Any student debt that borrowers owe private lenders remains outstanding.

Why are many more loans being forgiven now? Borrowers began to apply in 2017, after the requisite decade of on-time payments, for their remaining balances to be forgiven. However, nearly all of these applications were rejected – about 98% of them.

The vast majority of these denials were due to technicalities. Many borrowers felt cheated after holding up their end of the deal but still finding themselves burdened with debts they didn’t believe they should have to repay. Some of them filed a class-action lawsuit, which the Biden administration settled in 2021. Recognizing these concerns, the government streamlined and overhauled the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

The Department of Education announced several important changes in 2021. The federal government expanded the types of loans that are eligible for forgiveness and gave borrowers a way to get credit for past payments.** However, most student loan borrowers did not see the impact of this change until October 2023, when student loan payments resumed for other borrowers after being paused starting in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.**

lmao amazing what some context can do. Loans that should've been forgiven years ago are only now being forgiven because the political cost of the other 40 million private borrowers resuming payments has to be covered-up somehow, so settling scores that should've already been settled is a good propaganda and optic boost for an admin that will never touch the 1.7 trillion in private loans