Student loan relief reaches 1 million public workers after program changes

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program has reached a big milestone: more than 1 million Americans have now gotten their student loans erased. This is a huge jump from the tiny number of 7‚000 people who were approved before the Biden administration changed the rules about 3 years ago

The program‚ which started roughly 17 years ago promised to wipe out whats left of federal student loans for college grads after they worked 10 years in government or non-profit jobs. But things didnt go smoothly at first. Around 7 years ago‚ most people who applied were turned down because of tricky rules that werent explained well

For too long‚ the government failed to live up to its commitments

To fix this‚ Bidens team made some changes. They let people count past times when they paused payments‚ and made other tweaks. This helped a lot more folks qualify

Now‚ the program has wiped out $74 billion in loans for public workers. Thats a big chunk of the $175 billion total thatʼs been cancelled for about 5 million borrowers through different programs

The Education Secretary wants college students to know that working in public service can help them become debt-free in about 10 years. But there are still some bumps in the road: Bidens bigger plans for student loan relief have been stopped by courts after some states sued

Even with these problems‚ the government is focusing on the good news from existing programs. Theyʼre hoping this will show theyre keeping their promise to help people struggling with student debt