Biden renews ‘keep going’ call on college debt handouts

President Joe Biden reiterated Tuesday his administration aims to “keep going” with canceling federal student loan debt.

“My Administration has cancelled student debt for 3.6 million people through various actions, bringing the promise of higher education to more hardworking Americans,” he wrote on social media platform X. “And we’re going to keep going.”

The student debt that Biden has canceled for those individuals was collectively worth nearly $132 billion, the Department of Education has said.

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Biden’s comment about wiping away more debt comes two weeks after he made a very similar remark while speaking at a Dec. 19 campaign reception. 

“Despite actions from the Supreme Court and MAGA Republicans, I’ve relieved the student debt of 3.6 million Americans, and we’re going to keep going,” he said at the time, referencing the 6-3 ruling by the Supreme Court in June against Biden’s original student loan forgiveness plan.

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Earlier in December, Biden administration announced $4.8 billion worth of college debt forgiveness would get erased. That latest cancelation, which applied to 80,300 borrowers, consisted of $2.2 billion in income-driven repayment forgiveness and $2.8 billion in Public Service Loan Forgiveness, according to the Education Department. 

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Approximately 43.2 million people in the U.S. had federal student loans as of the fourth quarter for the 2023 federal fiscal year, data from the Education Department showed. Those loans amounted to $1.6 trillion. 

Bradford Betz and Greg Wehner contributed to this report.