Biden Administration updates student loan forgiveness requirements
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
As student aid for the new academic school year has just become available for students, the Biden Administration has now changed the qualifications needed to utilize the student loan forgiveness program.
According to the student aid website, as of September 29th, people who have Federal Family Education Loans or Perkins Loans not held by the department of education, can't get the relief by consolidating the loans into direct loans.
However, those who consolidated prior to the September 29th date still can.
The change in requirements will now exclude at least 770,000 thousand borrowers of the 4 million who have either the Perkins Loan or the FFEL loan, an administration official told ABC News.
The change comes as President Biden is facing two lawsuits against the program.
ABC News says, one law suits is from an Indiana resident who says the loan forgiveness would force him to pay taxes on the canceled amount.
The other suit is, from six different state governors, representing Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina .
The elected officials argues the loan forgiveness is fundamentally unfair.
“President Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme is fundamentally unfair and would harm the American families forced to pay for it. Additionally, the Executive branch does not have unilateral authority to impose a sweeping student loan cancellation plan,” Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said in a statement to ABC News
The relief program will provide loan relief up to $10,000 Non-Pell Grant recipients and $20,000 to those who received the grant.
Borrowers are only eligible for the loan relief if their individual income is lower than $125,000 and household income is less than $250,000.
The Department of Education says, they are assessing whether there are alternative wats to provide relief to borrowers with federal student loans not held by Education Department , including FFEL Loans and Perkins loans.
The application for program is set to open in early October. You can check out what will be needed for the application here.
