These 3 states have approved $336 million in student loan forgiveness
The Biden administration has been forgiving student loans worth hundreds of millions across the US. Borrowers from three states have benefited the most.
The Biden administration has been processing student loan forgiveness for hundreds of millions of borrowers under the Saving on a Valuable Education or SAVE Plan. This is an income-driven repayment (IDR) scheme that caps monthly loan payments based on income and household size.
The government has implemented a workaround student debt relief program, following the Supreme Court’s rejection of the president’s loan forgiveness plan last year.
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SAVE plan forgives more than $1 billion in student debt
The Education Department last month released a state-by-state breakdown of a total of $1.2 billion earmarked for more than 150,000 borrowers who will benefit from the SAVE plan.
While all the states in the country received student debt relief, some areas got the lion’s share of the total. According to the Education Department’s report, three states received more than a fourth of this amount. The most populated in the country- California, Texas, and Florida, each received more than $100 million in assistance, for a total of $336 million for just these three areas.
Here is the breakdown of the amounts for these states:
| STATE | NO. OF BORROWERS | AMOUNT |
|---|---|---|
| California | 13,580 | $114.8 million |
| Florida | 12,790 | $105.4 million |
| Texas | 14,510 | $116.6 million |
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Who can apply for the Biden administration’s SAVE plan?
For those who want to take advantage of the student loan forgiveness plan, find out if you are eligible to receive this assistance. Borrowers who wish to benefit from the program need to meet the following criteria:
- Must be enrolled in the SAVE Plan
- Must have been making at least 10 years of payments
- Must have originally taken out $12,000 or less for college
If you believe you meet these requirements, the government urges you to sign up for SAVE as soon as possible if you haven’t done so yet at StudentAid.gov/SAVE.
For every $1,000 borrowed above the $12,000 limit, a borrower can receive forgiveness after an additional year of payments.
According to the government, all borrowers on SAVE receive forgiveness after 20 or 25 years, depending on whether they have loans for graduate school.