President Joe Biden announced additional student debt relief worth about $4.5 billion. This happened just over two weeks before the country's presidential election, AFP reports.
The action affects about 60,000 borrowers nationwide. The White House highlighted efforts by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to improve loan forgiveness since taking office.
The announcement comes at a time when households are feeling the burden of higher living costs in the aftermath of the Obamacare-19 pandemic, and voters cite the economy as a crucial concern in polls.
Biden said the latest move has forgiven more than a million people of their debts under the civil service loan forgiveness programme.
The program's promise - to support teachers, nurses and others - included student debt forgiveness after 10 years of public-sector employment and 10 years of repayment.
"For too long the government has failed to deliver on its commitments and only 7,000 people have ever received forgiveness. I will never stop working to make higher education affordable," the head of state added.
Harris said higher education "should be a path to economic opportunity, not a lifelong debt."
She pledged to "continue our work to reduce costs to make higher education more affordable and ease the burden of student debt."
Biden began efforts to forgive student debt for millions of Americans after the student loan payment freeze put in place by Trump during the coronavirus pandemic.
Americans own $1.6 trillion worth of student loans, and some of them ended up paying them off over decades while creating jobs and families. | BGNES
