- The Biden administration will forgive $39 billion of student debt for about 800,000 borrowers.
- Only those who've made repayments in an income-driven plan for either 20 or 25 years are eligible.
Joe Biden's latest student-debt relief effort probably isn't going to help anyone younger than 40.
The Education Department said Friday that it plans to automatically cancel $39 billion of loan repayments for about 800,000 borrowers by fixing paperwork issues with income-driven repayment plans.
Those plans are supposed to forgive borrowers' debt after at least 20 years of payments, but administrative errors and other flaws have left many making payment for far longer.
The announcement's fine print shows that only borrowers who have "accumulated the equivalent of either 20 or 25 years of qualifying months" will have their debts forgiven. That means you probably have to be more than 40 years old to get any sort of relief, given that most Americans graduate and start making student-loan repayments in their early twenties.
The Education Department said it will start notifying borrowers who are eligible to have their debt repayments forgiven over the next few weeks.
The Biden administration's latest move comes two weeks after the Supreme Court struck down its broader plan to cancel up to $20,000 worth of student debt for federal borrowers.
Six of the court's judges ruled that the education secretary is unable to cancel more than $430 billion of student debt under the HEROES Act, a 2003 law that gives the secretary the ability to modify loans in an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The administration is looking into alternate legal approaches to offer broader student-loan forgiveness.