President Joe Biden and the Education Department approved $3.9 billion in student loan forgiveness on Tuesday, primarily for former students of the ITT Technical Institute. The measure will fully and automatically cancel any remaining federal student loans that borrowers received to attend the for-profit college from January 2005 through September 2016, when the vocational school permanently closed all locations.
US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona noted in a press release Tuesday that the former students should “stop shouldering the burden from ITT’s years of lies and false promises,” referring to the school’s predatory and misleading recruiting and enrollment practices. Cardona added that the Biden administration will “continue to stand up for borrowers who’ve been cheated by their colleges.”
In addition to former ITT students, roughly 100 federal student loan borrowers enrolled in the Medical Assistant or Medical Billing & Coding Program at Kaplan Career Institute’s Kenmore Square location will also receive federal student loan forgiveness.
Including this latest round of student debt relief, the Biden administration has approved roughly $32 billion in loan forgiveness. For those who still have student loan debt, payment requirements are scheduled to resume Sept. 1, but it’s possible the payment pause will once again be extended.
