Some student loan borrowers will get their debt canceled early, with their balances wiped out next month

• Student debt forgiveness for some borrowers on the SAVE plan is coming faster than expected.
• Starting in February, some borrowers with less than $12,000 in loans will see their debts canceled.

Student debt forgiveness is coming faster than expected for some borrowers who have been chipping away at their loans.

A key feature of President Joe Biden's new student-loan repayment plan is shortening the forgiveness timeline for some borrowers, particularly those with lower borrowing amounts. And now, some of those borrowers will see forgiveness half a year ahead of schedule.

"I am proud that my administration is implementing one of the most impactful provisions of the SAVE plan nearly six months ahead of schedule," Biden said in a statement. "Starting next month, borrowers enrolled in SAVE who took out less than $12,000 in loans and have been in repayment for 10 years will get their remaining student debt cancelled immediately."

Over the summer, the Education Department implemented the SAVE income-driven repayment plan, intended to lower student-loan borrowers' monthly payments and bring thousands of their bills down to $0. On Friday, the department announced it would be moving forward with another critical feature of the plan — cutting the timeline for some borrowers to receive complete debt cancellation.

Specifically, in February, the department will begin discharging the loans of borrowers who originally took out $12,000 in student loans or less and have completed as few as 10 years of qualifying payments through income-driven repayment.

The department will begin notifying borrowers that they may qualify for the relief on Friday, and it will continue identifying borrowers who will benefit from this relief on a rolling basis. Come February, eligible borrowers will be notified that their loans are getting discharged — with no action needed. For every $1,000 over the $12,000 threshold that borrowers owe, they can get forgiveness after another year of payments. Payments borrowers made during the pandemic pause will also count towards forgiveness.

"SAVE gives borrowers a chance to climb the economic ladder without unaffordable student loan payments weighing them down," US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a call with reporters, attributing the promptness to the president's commitment to rapid debt relief. He added: "We don't want to go back to the days when a million people defaulted on their student loans every year. We want borrowers to succeed."

So far, 6.9 million student-loan borrowers have enrolled in SAVE. However, since its implementation, it hasn't been as seamless as the department intended. Some borrowers have reported their payments on SAVE are higher than anticipated, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently found servicers have had a backlog in processing SAVE applications, leading some borrowers to be stuck with much higher payments than they can afford. A senior department official said, however, that the number of applications currently in the pipeline is now lower than what was reported in the CFPB findings.