The White House recently announced that approximately 813,000 borrowers whose accounts were adjusted in August 2023 will receive an email from President Biden that their loans are being forgiven. This is based on the U.S. Department of Education (ED) undertaking a one-time account adjustment to evaluate which borrowers meet the qualifying threshold on their repayment plan.
By way of background, the income-driven repayment plans for federal student loan borrowers capped monthly payments at a given percentage of earnings, with the promise the balance would be forgiven after 20 or 25 years of payments. However, a 2022 Government Accountability Office report found the Department did not accurately track payments until a decade after the first income-driven plan was implemented.
