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Supreme Court student loan case: The arguments explained

The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments over President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan, which impacts millions of borrowers who could see their loans wiped away or reduced. (Feb. 27)

FILE - New graduates walk into the High Point Solutions Stadium before the start of the Rutgers University graduation ceremony in Piscataway Township, N.J., on May 13, 2018. The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments over President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan. It’s a plan that impacts millions of borrowers who could see their loans wiped away or reduced. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

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FILE- Light illuminates part of the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 16, 2022. The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments over President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan. It’s a plan that impacts millions of borrowers who could see their loans wiped away or reduced. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks about student loan debt relief at Delaware State University, Friday, Oct. 21, 2022, in Dover, Del. The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments over President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan. It’s a plan that impacts millions of borrowers who could see their loans wiped away or reduced. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks about the student debt relief portal beta test in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in Washington, Oct. 17, 2022. The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments over President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan. It’s a plan that impacts millions of borrowers who could see their loans wiped away or reduced. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - Graduates walk at a Harvard Commencement ceremony held for the classes of 2020 and 2021, May 29, 2022, in Cambridge, Mass. The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments over President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan. It’s a plan that impacts millions of borrowers who could see their loans wiped away or reduced. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments over President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan, which impacts millions of borrowers who could see their loans wiped away or reduced.

So far, Republican-appointed judges have kept the Democratic president’s plan from going into effect, and it remains to be seen how the court, dominated 6-3 by conservatives, will respond . The justices have scheduled two hours of arguments in the case Tuesday, though it will probably go longer . The public can listen in on the court’s website beginning at 10 a.m. EST.

Where things stand ahead of the hearing as well as what to expect:

HOW DOES THE FORGIVENESS PLAN WORK?

The debt forgiveness plan announced in August would cancel $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 or households with less than $250,000 in income per year. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, would get an additional $10,000 in debt forgiven.

College students qualify if their loans were disbursed before July 1. The plan makes 43 million borrowers eligible for some debt forgiveness, with 20 million who could have their debt erased entirely, according to the Biden administration.

The White House says 26 million people have applied for debt relief, and 16 million people had already had their relief approved. The Congressional Budget Office has said the program will cost about $400 billion over the next three decades.

HOW DID THE ISSUE WIND UP AT THE SUPREME COURT?

The Supreme Court is hearing two challenges to the plan. One involves six Republican-led states that sued. The other involves a lawsuit filed by two students.

A lower court dismissed the lawsuit involving the following states: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina. The court said the states could not challenge the program because they weren’t harmed by it. But a panel of three federal appeals court judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit — all of them appointed by Republican presidents — put the program on hold during an appeal . The Supreme Court then agreed to weigh in .

The students’ case involves Myra Brown, who is ineligible for debt relief because her loans are commercially held, and Alexander Taylor, who is eligible for just $10,000 and not the full $20,000 because he didn’t receive a Pell grant. They say that the Biden administration didn’t go through the proper process in enacting the plan, among other things.

Texas-based U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of President Donald Trump, sided with the students and ruled to block the program. Pittman ruled that the Biden administration did not have clear authorization from Congress to implement the program. A federal appeals court left Pittman’s ruling in place, and the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case along with the states’ challenge.

HOW DID BIDEN GET TO CANCEL THE DEBT?

To cancel student loan debt, the Biden administration relied on the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, commonly known as the HEROES Act. Originally enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack, the law was initially intended to keep service members from being worse off financially while they fought in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now extended, it allows the secretary of education to waive or modify the terms of federal student loans as necessary in connection with a national emergency.

Trump, a Republican, declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergency in March 2020, but Biden recently announced that designation will end May 11 . The Biden administration has said that the end to the national emergency doesn’t change the legal argument for student loan debt cancellation because the pandemic affected millions of student borrowers who might have fallen behind on their loans during the emergency.

WHAT ARE THE JUSTICES LIKELY TO ASK ABOUT?

Expect the justices to be focused on several big issues. The first one is whether the states and the two borrowers have the right to sue over the plan in the first place, a legal concept called “standing.” If they don’t, that clears the way for the Biden administration to go ahead with it. To prove they have standing, the states and borrowers will have to show in part that they’re financially harmed by the plan.

Beyond standing, the justices will also be asking whether the HEROES Act gives the Biden administration the power to enact the plan and how it went about doing so.

WHEN WILL BORROWERS KNOW THE OUTCOME?

It will likely be months before borrowers learn the outcome of the case, but there’s a deadline of sorts. The court generally issues all of its decisions by the end of June before going on a summer break.

Whether or not the debt gets cancelled, the case’s resolution will bring changes. While federal student loan payments are currently paused, that will end 60 days after the case is resolved . And if the case hasn’t been resolved by June 30, payments will start 60 days after that.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court .

The Supreme Court takes up student loan forgiveness — What’s at stake?

Subscribe to governance weekly, katharine meyer katharine meyer fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy @katharinemeyer.

March 1, 2023

On February 28 th , the Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases about the Biden administration’s proposed student loan forgiveness program — Biden v. Nebraska and U.S. Department of Education v. Brown . The cases focused on two key questions – do the petitioners meet the constitutional requirement for “standing,” or injury, from the policy, and does the Department of Education have the legal authority to forgive student loan debt? Depending on the Court’s decision, millions of Americans will have a substantial share, if not all, of their student loans forgiven.

Who stands to benefit and what are the implications of the Court’s decision?

Who stands to benefit?

The majority of voters supported student loan forgiveness when President Biden announced his plan to forgive up to $10,000 in student loan debt (or $20,000 for those who received a Pell grant). Nonetheless, there has been ongoing debate about who benefits and the economic implications of widespread forgiveness.

Who benefits most depends on how you define benefit — whether as the amount of forgiveness or share of loans forgiven. Some individuals will receive a larger amount of loan forgiveness because they hold larger loan balances. However, framing benefit as the share of loans forgiven means more lower-balance borrowers will become debt-free. Analysis from the U.S. Census finds that about 29% of student loan borrowers would have their full balances forgiven.

Debt balances — and potential forgiveness — vary by the borrower’s race, gender, and educational attainment. Advanced degree graduates are more likely to have loans and higher balances —  graduate school is expensive — but are also on average higher income and less likely to qualify for the policy’s income cap. A smaller share of individuals who never completed college hold loans — but those that do also never received the benefits of a college credential, and between 39%-67% of those borrowers would become debt-free if the policy is enacted. Black borrowers at every level of education are more likely to have student loans for the same education, and the black-white gap in student loan debt more than triples four-years after students earn bachelor’s degrees.

The Legal Questions: Standing

The administration has been playing proverbial “whack-a-mole” with potential standing arguments since they first announced the policy — first clarifying that individuals could opt-out from receiving forgiveness after a potential petitioner claimed injury from a state tax burden on their forgiven loans, and then announcing older, privately held loans were no longer eligible for consolidation to receive forgiveness, amid murmurings of private banks claiming standing on lost account revenue.

Biden v. Nebraska (brought by six states — Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina) offered the most plausible standing argument of the two cases, with the main argument that Missouri could face reduced contributions from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA), one of the largest federal student loan servicers. MOHELA is set up as a third-party from the state and has an obligation to contribute to Missouri state university funds, and petitioners argue that if MOHELA has fewer customers due to loan forgiveness, they will be unable to make those obligations (even though they have not made those payments in about 15 years). However, MOHELA has been notably quiet about this argument, except to respond to an inquiry from Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) noting they were not involved in the state’s decision to pursue a lawsuit. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar acknowledged that MOHELA would have standing in a case, and their absence from the suit was highlighted by several justices, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett who has previously rejected challenges to the loan forgiveness program, declining to take up lower court cases based on lack of standing.

A Major Question: Authority

The Department of Justice presented the case for the Secretary of Education having the authority to forgive student loans. Drawing on the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003 which has provided justification for the ongoing student loan payment pause, the Department argues they have the authority to forgive student loans. Much of the debate centered around the meaning of the words “waive or modify” and the scope implied by Congress when passing the HEROES Act.

At the heart of the issue is the question of economic impact and whether or not it should factor in legal decisions to waive or modify.

Estimates vary in how much the program will cost, with uncertainty around ultimate take-up of the program. Estimates for the program are high — potentially up to $400 billion over ten years — and the high cost of the program featured heavily in lines of inquiry from Justice Clarence Thomas during Court arguments on Tuesday about whether the Secretary overstepped authority and the policy represented more than a “modification.” Here, though, lines of oral arguments centered on the distinction between a legal question and a policy debate. While the Court may have authority to rule on legal questions of standing and executive interpretation of Congressional acts, other justices argued the economic impact of a policy should not factor in those legal decisions.

Decision Implications

The Court will face an important question of precedent — do they want to establish that the potential loss of state tax revenue or ineligibility to benefit from a policy is sufficient to meet the constitutional standing requirement? Or do they wish to set the precedent that the HEROES Act provides the broad authority for student loan cancelation? The second precedent is less likely to occur again — the HEROES Act is closely tied to national emergencies, and the current one ends on May 11.

Restarting Repayments

Millions of borrowers will face repayment in 2023. While there have been many “final” extensions to the student loan repayment pause, the ending of the national public health emergency on May 11 likely means the current extension will be the last. Student loan payments will resume 60 days following the Supreme Court’s decision (or 60 days following June 30). A key provision of the HEROES Act is that waivers or modification to student loan terms are authorized if they are necessary to ensure individuals “are not placed in a worse position financially” as a result of the national emergency. The Department of Justice argued that this restart of payments is itself a motivating act for loan forgiveness, as the restart of payments after a substantial pause would cause harm to a significant share of borrowers.

The most concerning outcome is that borrowers who are unprepared for their payments to resume may fall into delinquency or default , which can result in wages garnishment and borrowers losing eligibility for additional financial aid. Default is more common among two-year college borrowers and those who attended for-profit institutions. About two out of five borrowers who attended a two-year, for-profit institution defaulted on their loans within five years.

The Biden administration launched their “ Fresh Start ” initiative in April 2022 to move borrowers who were in default prior to the pandemic into good standing — though borrowers must apply for the program. Borrowers could also sign up for an income-based repayment plan if their monthly payments are too high, though take-up rates on those plans are low. The Biden administration has announced plans for a new income-driven repayment plan that would result in substantially more borrowers having $0 monthly payments , but this plan is still in development, and it is unclear if it will be in place when the student loan payment pause ends.

Questions about the legality and impact of the proposed student loan forgiveness program are not easy ones to answer — and we shouldn’t expect the Court to issue a decision until June. Regardless of the decision, college funding and affordability are in dire need of reform. Supporting existing borrowers through reduced balances and repayment plans is a way to redress past damage — now the work must turn to building a sustainable federal and state system of funding higher education that actually improves students’ economic well-being.

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Education loan repayment: a systematic literature review

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• Open access
• Published: 05 October 2023

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• Rakshith Bhandary   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7994-0430 1 ,
• Sandeep S. Shenoy   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9848-9718 1 ,
• Ankitha Shetty   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1314-7322 1 &
• Adithya D. Shetty   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3062-2655 1  

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Education is a significant contributor to human capital. Financial assistance for education through institutional loan serves as the key element for human development, and loan repayment without default makes the education loan product self-sustainable. The systematic review aims to study the various articles related to education loan repayment (ELR) using bibliometric analysis approach and R studio software with the help of biblioshiny package. The study analyses 812 articles published in the Scopus database between 1990 and 2022. The review identifies most relevant authors, most cited articles, publication trends, keywords and themes, and trending topics. The review finds that research in the domain of ELR is at an increasing trend with a growth rate of 7.2% and, in the year 2022, the highest number of scientific publications, that is, 72 articles, was published. The review exhibits that existing research in the field has mainly focused on themes such as repayment burden, financial literacy, financial education, student debt, income, mental health, and loan defaults. The study concludes that highly cited work in educational loan repayment is in the field of medicine, highlighting salary as the key factor for educational loan repayment, and loan repayment is incentivized by the federal government to serve the designated underserved areas through service option loan repayment programs. Methods on designing and marketing new approaches to loan repayment can be researched in future with relation to human resource recruitment and retention by the employers.

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Introduction

Education loans (ELs) are an important source of financing for higher education. However, the increasing number of students’ relying on educational loans has emphasized the challenges associated with loan repayment. The concept of promoting ELs in India was first introduced in 2001 by the Indian Banks Association (IBA), which also designed the educational loan scheme. There are 864 universities, 40,026 schools, and 11,669 independent higher education institutions in India. 77.8 percentage of India's colleges are privately run, and majority are non-assisted colleges. In Indian higher education, the gross enrolment ratio (GER) is 25.2 percentage for 2016–2017, while globally, it ranges from 8 percentage in Africa to 75 percentage in Europe and North America (Nerkar and Dhongde 2018 ). Overall enrolment in Indian higher education is 1.9 crore boys and 1.6 crore girls as of 2018. The overall portfolio of ELs is about Rs. 80,000 crore, consisting mainly of scheduled commercial banks (contributing Rs. 73,000 crore), cooperative banks (Rs. 2000 crore), and non-banking financial corporations (Rs. 5000 crore) as mentioned by Nerkar and Dhongde ( 2018 ).

ELs sanctioned in India have declined by 25% over the past 5 years from 2015 to 2019 because default ratios have increased in education loan repayment (ELR). As on March 31, 2019, the sanctioned number of loans for education decreased from 3.34 to 2.5 lakh (Chitra 2019 ). The reason for the decline in ELs sanctioned is due to the increasing non-performing assets in the education loan (EL) portfolio of financial institutions. However, it may be noted that the total loan amount disbursed has increased by 34 per cent amounting to Rs. 22,550 crore in the fiscal year 2019 from Rs. 16,800 crore in the financial year 2015 (Chitra 2019 ), which indicates that banks are keen on funding high ticket education loans. Student loan borrowing is at its highest ever as of August 2022, with more than 45 million borrowers collectively owing $1.75 trillion student loan debt including private and federal loans in the USA, and the average borrowing per student is around $28,950. Federal student loan repayments have been paused, it is in forbearance from March 2020 owing to the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the repayment reprieve was set to expire in May 2022 (Hahn 2023 ).

The motive to review the study on factors affecting ELR is based on the value parameters for literature reviews written by Lim et al. ( 2022a ) that highlights necessity, importance, relevance, urgency, and contribution of literature reviews. This review gives insights to future researchers to identify gaps, avoid duplicative efforts in ELR by identifying the current state and progress in ELR. This study explains the benefits to new and established scholars with an updated understanding of the field of study, and the emerging fields in ELR, and its relevance to the journals scope. There are limited reviews on ELR, and past studies have limitations since they do not address the issues caused by covid-19 pandemic.

Mukherjee et al. ( 2022 ) mentioned theoretical contributions from science mapping and practical contributions from performance analysis for bibliometric analysis. In this study, theoretical contributions are presented by clarifying nomological networks to ELR factors, mapping social patterns to understand the social process supporting knowledge development in the field, and by tracking the declining, growing, and emerging topics. It also recognizes crucial knowledge gaps for future directions. Practical contributions of this study include reporting research productivity and impact in ELR, ascertaining reach for coverage claims, identifying social dominance or hidden biases, detecting anomalies for further examination, and evaluating relative performance. The aim of the paper is to systematically review the various articles related to ELR and the factors affecting repayment.

Literature review

Studies have found that ELs are widely available and offered by various financial institutions such as banks, non-banking financial companies, and educational institutions (Rani 2016 ). The factors affecting ELRs include interest rate, type of loan—mortgage-based or income contingent, loan amount, repayment period, and financial conditions of the borrower (Ganapathy et al. 2019 ). Moreover, the attitude of the borrower was found to influence ELR (Bhandary et al. 2023 ; Ismail et al. 2011 ). Several studies have identified the major challenges faced by borrowers in repaying their ELs. These challenges include high interest rates (Miller et al. 2019 ), low repayment capacities (Ganapathy et al. 2019 ), low levels of awareness (Ganapathy et al. 2019 ), lack of job opportunities (Dutta and Dey 2019 ), and the lack of effective loan management systems (Rani 2016 ). Borrowers with limited financial resources are often unable to repay their loans due to high interest rates, which can make it difficult for them to manage their finances (Chaudhary and Kaur 2018 ). In addition, lack of job opportunities makes it difficult for borrowers to repay their loans as they may not have a steady income (Dutta and Dey 2019 ).

EL programs vary across different countries in the world in terms of organizational structure, underlying objective, initial funding sources, loan application procedures, student coverage, and the collection methods (Ziderman 2004 ). Government-subsidized EL schemes are available in 70 countries across the world (Shen and Ziderman 2009 ). Prior research has suggested many factors in the background of educational loans, concerning non-repayment by borrowers. Such considerations include history of borrowers, amount of loan borrowed, instability of employment and wages, form of repayment, academic experience, institutional characteristics, income, and education of parents (Lochner et al. 2013 ). The same study mentioned financial instability as the biggest barrier to loan repayment. Rani ( 2016 ) suggested that scholarships, fees, grants, and ELs need to be re-evaluated in the context of increasing costs to design better schemes for higher education.

This study has implications for bank marketing for recouping the money spent on EL. Prospective authors can examine consumer behaviour towards banks and financial service providers as per the gap analysed by Kumar et al. ( 2022b ), and ways forward on personal financial management is encouraged given the impact of covid-19 pandemic on consumer finances. In the study by Baker et al. ( 2023 ), financial fragility is negatively associated with financial well-being, and loan repayment has implications on financial well-being of young adults. In the study by Tavares et al. ( 2023 ), individuals presented greater levels of financial literacy perception compared to actual knowledge of financial literacy. She et al. ( 2023 ) mentioned the lack of research articles in interventions to improve young adults’ financial well-being and found limited consensus on a conclusive measure for young adults’ financial well-being. Contributions of this study have implications on young adults’ financial well-being, safeguarding the financial well-being of young adults’ in areas such as financial fragility and financial literacy. The systematic review aims to evaluate and synthesize the existing research on EL programs in various countries around the world, with a focus on the current state of ELR, challenges faced by borrowers, and measures taken to overcome these challenges. Hence, we frame the following research questions.

What is the publication trend in ELR research?

Which are the most influential articles contributing to ELR research?

Who are the top prolific authors in ELR research?

What are the major themes and topics studied in ELR research?

What is the future scope of research in ELR research?

This systematic review uses bibliometric analysis using biblioshiny package in R Language to understand the trends in publication and to uncover the future research directions. Biblioshiny is a data visualization tool developed in R language by Aria and Cuccurullo ( 2017 ) to perform bibliometric analysis. The study follows the method of evidence informed management knowledge for systematic review (Tranfield et al. 2003 ). Eligibility and screening evaluation observed PICO (Participants, Interventions, Comparisons and Outcomes), and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analysis) guidelines. The data collection stage encompassed selecting the database, extracting literature with inclusion- exclusion criteria, exporting the extracted data to biblioshiny, and filtering the articles. The data search was conducted on the Scopus database because of its large coverage as compared to web of science (Mongeon and Paul-Hus 2016 ).

The fundamental elements of literature reviews as independent studies are adopted from the guidelines prepared by Kraus et al. ( 2022 ) for systematic literature reviews. The interrogative approach of “what” “why” “when” “where” “who” and “how” prescribed by Paul et al. ( 2021 ) in Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews (SPAR-4-SLR) is used as a tool guide in this study. The bibliometric data were analysed using the three stage sensemaking approach of scanning the data, sensing the data and substantiating the findings developed by Lim and Kumar ( 2023 ).

The search string combinations and Boolean operators used are TITLE-ABSTRACT-KEYWORD ("education*" OR "student*" AND "loan*" OR "debt*" AND "payment*" OR "repayment*" OR "instalment*") AND PUBLICATION YEAR > 1989 AND PUBLICATION YEAR < 2023 AND (LIMIT-TO (PUBLICATION STAGE, "final")) AND (LIMIT-TO (DOCUMENT TYPE, "article") OR LIMIT-TO (DOCUMENT TYPE, "book chapter") OR LIMIT-TO (DOCUMENT TYPE, "review") OR LIMIT-TO (DOCUMENT TYPE, "conference paper") OR LIMIT-TO (DOCUMENT TYPE, "book")) AND (LIMIT-TO (LANGUAGE, "english")). Finally, 812 articles were extracted from Scopus in csv format and exported to biblioshiny for analysis. Articles, book chapters, reviews, conference papers, and books were included after excluding editorial letters, notes, and short surveys from the data in biblioshiny as shown in Fig.  1 . The inclusion exclusion criteria followed the PRISMA protocol introduced by Moher et al. ( 2009 ) and 38 records were included for the bibliometric study.

Review process for ELR research based on the PRISMA protocol

The study applied bibliometric analysis to provide an overview of the research in the field of ELR. Bibliometric analysis toolbox by Donthu et al. ( 2021 ) prescribes performance analysis and science mapping for bibliometric result analysis. Performance analysis techniques used in this study are descriptive analysis and citation analysis. The science mapping method included in our study is keyword co-occurrence analysis. The study results have been discussed in the below sections.

Annual scientific production

Figure  2 illustrates the research and publication trend from 1990 to 2022. The figure depicts rapid growth in the publication since 2009 and the compounded annual growth rate is 7.2%. From 1990 to 2006, there was a slow-paced growth in the research field. After 2009, there was a surge in publications demonstrating the growing interest among research scholars. The total number of publications ( n ) from 1990 to 2022 yielded 812 documents; 93.58% were published between 2009 and 2022. The year 2022 has the highest number of publications ( n  = 72). The statistics of annual scientific production show that ELR has emerged as a significant research theme.

Most relevant authors and authors’ impact

Figure  3 shows the most relevant authors. Chapman has published the highest number of documents (15 articles). The second highest work in ELR is done by Pathman, with 13 articles. Table 1 displays the top 20 most relevant authors, author impact, and total citations received. Ley has been cited more than 300 times. Chapman has the highest h -index of 9.

Most relevant authors

Citation analysis

The top 10 globally cited documents are given in Table 2 . The article by Ley and Rosenberg ( 2005 ) found that physician scientists play a crucial role in medical research and were declining in number with increased indebtedness of medical graduates due to rising tuition fees. The study highlights ELR as an obstacle to pursue medical research careers. Rosenblatt et al. ( 2006 ) found that the major barrier in physician recruitment to community health centres was low salaries and recruitment was heavily dependent on NHSC scholarships and state loan repayment programs. Loan repayment for community service in the designated shortage areas was used as an incentive to entice physicians to work in the underserved areas (Pathman et al. 2004 ). Medical residents reported symptoms of stress, depression, increased cynicism, and decreased humanism owing to their association with increased EL debt and sought for legislative relief from early loan repayment (Collier et al. 2002 ). State ELR programs for health workers return of service in underserved areas with minimum service requirements were found to alleviate health worker shortage in underserved areas (Barnighausen and Bloom 2009 ). Skillman et al. ( 2010 ) suggested loan repayment programs to be provided for increased participation in oral healthcare in rural America.

Education debt below $10,000 was found to support college completion and above $10,000 was found to reduce the likelihood of college completion (Dwyer et al. 2012 ) which indicates that amount of loan is a significant factor affecting ELR. In the study by Brown et al. ( 2016 ), it was found that mathematics and financial education among students improves loan repayment behaviour. Walsemann et al. ( 2015 ) studied the mental health of indebted young adults with student loan borrowings and found that the presence of student loans was associated with poor psychological functioning having possible spill over effects like occupational trajectories affecting loan repayment at a later stage. O'Neill et al. ( 2005 ) found that participation in credit counselling programs improves health and financial behaviours.

Word cloud analysis

Figure  4 displays the word cloud analysis, keywords such as higher education, student debt, financial literacy, financial education, human capital, financial aid, loan forgiveness, indebtedness, student loan default, and repayment burdens. Researchers can use these words to find the most relevant articles in ELR.

Co-occurrence network

The co-occurrence network shows the major themes related to student loans. In total, the co-occurrence analysis of keywords revealed six knowledge clusters. The explanation for each cluster is based on sensemaking. Sensemaking is a process of arranging keywords in clusters to convey a coherent narrative (Lim et al 2022b ; Kumar et al 2022a ). The six knowledge clusters are identified under.

Repayment burdens following higher education financing through student loans

The co-occurrence of keywords in cluster one investigates “repayment burdens” and “loan defaults” in “student loans” following “higher education financing”. The “policy” support and “financial aid” are also grouped together since they contribute towards “human capital”.

Loan repayment in pursuit of higher education

The “indebtedness” towards “student debt” and “loan repayment” in pursuit of “higher education” is grouped in cluster two.

Financial literacy through financial education

The third cluster examines “financial literacy” through “financial education” and its relation to “student loan debt”.

National health service corps healthcare support programs in service repayment options

The fourth cluster investigates “national health service corps” incentives, aid to “medical education” and “workforce” to contribute towards “rural health” and “primary care”.

Student debts and income

The sixth cluster examines the relation between “students” and various “debt” of students including “consumer credit” and the different sources of “income” while studying the course.

Student financial aid for educational finance

The sixth cluster examines the various “student financial aid” available to “finance education”.

The links between various clusters are highlighted to show the different areas of study and the interlink between them in Fig.  5 .

Thematic map

Co-word analysis of author keywords identifies trending topics in the field. The thematic map was analysed using the technique mentioned by Cobo et al. ( 2011 ). The trending topics in student loans are identified based on the central-density diagram. Figure  6 shows the four quadrants as per the clusters of keywords based on centrality and density along the X - and Y -axis that are discussed below.

Thematic map (co-word analysis)

Motor theme: The themes of the first quadrant are well-advanced with high centrality and density. There are few motor themes such as “national health service corps”, “workforce”, “loan repayment”, “education debt” and “career”.

Niche themes: Second quadrant themes are with high density and low centrality. They are well-developed and specialized themes but are minimal compared to the overall field. “Mental health” and “housing affordability” are the noted themes in this quadrant.

Peripheral themes: The third quadrant consists declining themes with low density and low centrality. This quadrant includes declining themes such as “financial inclusion”, “student financial aid” and “educational finance”.

Basic themes: These themes under the fourth quadrant have high centrality and low density. They include “student loan”, “higher education” and “student debt”.

Discussions and implications

Key implications are discussed based on the identified cluster of themes and the trending topics.

Scholarships and loan repayment programs by the federal government were mentioned as a prominent factor among medical professionals affecting the ELR program (Ley and Rosenberg 2005 ; Rosenblatt et al. 2006 ). Citation analysis in educational loan repayment in the field of medicine highlighted “salary” as the key factor for ELR, and repayment had to be incentivized by the federal government to serve in the designated underserved areas by service option loan repayment programs (Barnighausen and Bloom 2009 ; Collier et al. 2002 ; Ley and Rosenberg 2005 ; Pathman et al. 2004 ; Rosenblatt et al. 2006 ; Skillman et al. 2010 ). Several states offered financial incentives and ELR programs for healthcare education (Pathman et al. 2013 ).

National Health Service Corps (NHSC) offers student loan repayment programs for physician assistants and nurse practitioners in exchange for 2 years of service with an option to renew the contract after 2 years (Pathman et al. 2014 ). The loan repayment programs (LRP) of the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) have provided critical recruitment and retention incentives (Pathman et al. 2022 ), and the NHSC LRP experience by clinicians in all domains was generally positive (Pathman et al. 2019 ).

Brown et al. ( 2016 ) found that financial and mathematical education improves repayment behaviour of students. It can be inferred that financial education is a factor affecting ELR. Bhatia and Singh ( 2023 ) reported that acquiring financial knowledge and developing positive financial attitude and adopting healthy financial behaviour are important to attain financial well-being. Anand and Mishra ( 2022 ) constructed a nonlinear model using vector machine classifier that classifies potential customers into good and bad class, based on their positive and negative savings behaviour, and concluded that behavioural characteristics along with income level and financial literacy can be used to understand financial distress among millennials. Steep instalment plans which have higher initial repayments as compared to flat instalment plans increase the borrowers focus on making repayments as per the study by Dezső et al. ( 2022 ) which implies instalment plan as a factor affecting ELR.

Mental health of young adults was affected by student loan borrowing having possible spillover effects that affect loan repayment (Walsemann et al. 2015 ). Income contingent loan reforms were suggested by Chapman ( 2006 ) as a much-needed reform in higher education financing. He studied the various income contingent loan repayment schemes in Yale, Sweden, Australia, Sweden, New Zealand and The Republic of South Korea and found that income contingent scheme is a factor that positively supports ELR as compared to mortgage-based loan repayment programs. Borrowing is considered less risky and reduces the impact of loan aversion by participants in the income contingent loan repayment method when compared to mortgage style repayments (Boatman et al. 2022 ). Income contingent repayment methods reduce the financial hardships of borrowers as compared to mortgage-based repayment systems (Barr et al. 2019 ; Cai et al. 2019 ; Chapman and Dearden 2017 ). Simulated EL scheme models for Brazil (Dearden and Nascimento 2019 ) and Ireland (Chapman and Doris 2019 ) favoured income contingent schemes as compared to mortgage-based schemes by reducing the repayment burden on borrowers.

Perception of service quality in banks improves by enhancing customer satisfaction and customer engagement (Ananda et al. 2022 ), which implies that EL borrowers’ engagement with bankers, and increase in borrowers’ satisfaction level with EL service providers improves borrowers’ perception of banks service quality. The study by Zwier ( 2021 ) suggests practitioners to add insurance-based marketing in their products marketing mix to create value added products. On similar lines, insurance-based marketing can be applied to add value in marketing ELs. Educational courses contribute significantly in providing financial resources to the universities as compared to conferences, seminars, consultancy and scientific research (AL-Ghaswyneh 2020 ). The study suggests universities to give more attention to educational courses in their university plans and policies to increase the financial resources implying universities to market ELs along with other stakeholders to increase the universities financial resources.

In the article by Dwyer et al. ( 2012 ), the quantum of loan was a significant factor affecting ELR. The article mentioned the threshold loan amount in the USA as $10,000, above which, loan repayment was likely to be defaulted by non-completion of the course. Banks should strengthen their human capital efficiency and structure capital efficiency should be taken into consideration to strengthen their competitive advantage and gain higher market share (Van Nguyen and Lu 2023 ). In the same study, it was found that intellectual capital fosters the competitive nature of banks and ensures growth and development of banks. EL schemes for developing human capital with service repayment options by banks have to be designed and marketed for students with high intellectual capabilities willing to serve the banks in order to strengthen the banking industry. EL products can be tailor made with partial or full repayment waivers and used as a recruitment tool by banks for students identified with proven intellectual capabilities and commitment to serve the banking sector for a certain duration.

Contributions of our study also have implications on young adults’ financial well-being and safeguarding the financial well-being of young adults’ including areas such as financial fragility and financial literacy.

Ways forward

The contribution of NHSC towards healthcare in underserved areas can be studied further to quantify the healthcare development of underserved areas. The threshold amount of the loan, above which, the repayment is likely to be defaulted, can be studied in developed, developing and under developed countries. Mental health of young adults with student loan borrowing can be researched further in different fields of study other than medicine. Cost–benefit analysis on borrowers who availed mortgage-based repayment, with borrowers who availed income contingent repayment can be researched. Safeguarding the financial well-being of young adults can be studied to explore the relationship of financial literacy and financial fragility with the well-being of student loan borrowers.

Future research can focus on designing new approaches to loan repayment that can be used as a tool for human resource recruitment and retention by the employers, with employers paying a part or full amount of the loan based on the tenure of service. Further research is needed to find innovative design and implementation techniques in mortgage-based and income contingent payment methods.

Conclusions

Key takeaways.

This review aimed at studying the factors affecting ELR by systematically reviewing articles and using technology powered solutions to visualize the output with the help of R studio. This study provides an overview of the current state of ELR and the challenges faced by borrowers in repaying their loans. The review highlights the measures taken to overcome these challenges, such as implementing effective loan management systems, increasing awareness about the loan repayment process, and providing job opportunities to borrowers. ELR in the field of medicine highlights salary as the key factor for educational loan repayment and repayment must be incentivized by the government to work in the designated underserved areas by service option loan repayment programs. EL needs to be marketed by universities to increase their financial resources. EL can be custom designed based on identified intellectual capabilities of borrowers and marketed by banks to increase the human capital and recruit the intellectuals with service repayment options by employers to strengthen the banking industry. Insurance can be coupled and marketed with EL as a value-added product for the beneficiaries. In sum, this technology-enabled systematic literature review using R studio on ELR from articles indexed in Scopus database has delivered on its research objectives and its specific research questions pertaining to the performance analysis and science mapping of the field.

Limitations and future review directions

This review has the following limitations. The bibliometric data are retrieved from a single database, that is, Scopus. Though the usage of Scopus is justified as per prior studies (Donthu et al. 2021 ; Lim et al. 2022b ), the study cannot completely discount the possibility of uncovering new insights on ELR documents indexed in other databases like web of science. Thus, future review can focus on ELR articles using web of science as a cross-check mechanism to either support or contradict the generalizability of the findings in this review.

This study uses bibliometric analysis techniques such as performance analysis and science mapping. Though this review accomplishes the listed objectives, it is important to note that other types of reviews can still be conducted. In this regard, future research can consider analysing using new science mapping methods and performance analysis techniques. This study uses R studio for Bibliometric analysis. The bibliometric studies in future research can focus on using other data visualization software applications such as VOSviewer and Gephi by combining bibliometric analysis with network visualization software (Donthu et al. 2021 ).

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Bhandary, R., Shenoy, S.S., Shetty, A. et al. Education loan repayment: a systematic literature review. J Financ Serv Mark (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41264-023-00248-2

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Guest Essay

The Case Against Student Debt Relief Barely Even Pretends to Make Sense

By Eleni Schirmer and Louise Seamster

Eleni Schirmer, a postdoctoral fellow at the Concordia University Social Justice Center in Montreal, is an organizer for the Debt Collective. Louise Seamster is an assistant professor of sociology and African American studies at the University of Iowa, and a nonresident fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

The Biden administration’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 of debt for tens of millions of Americans has faced endless pressure. Just this week the House of Representatives voted to repeal it. But the suit against it, brought by six Republican-led states, has received much less scrutiny. That’s because the Supreme Court issued certiorari before judgment, meaning the suit did not first have to wend its way through lower courts. Its factual claims haven’t been adequately tested. They’ve hardly even been aired.

So we decided to do the fact-checking ourselves. We filed public records requests and reviewed almost a thousand pages of internal financial documents, emails and other communications from the parties in the case, as well as court filings and the transcript of oral arguments at the Supreme Court in February.

We found that the states’ most fundamental justification for bringing the case — that canceling student loans could leave a Missouri-based loan authority unable to meet its financial obligations to the state — is false. As our research shows, and the loan authority’s own documents confirm, even with the new policy in place, its revenues from servicing loans will increase.

According to the rules of American jurisprudence, if there is no injury, there is no right to sue. It’s called standing, and the plaintiffs don’t have it. They simply said they did. That assertion has been enough to get them to the nation’s highest court, and may help persuade the justices to rule in their favor.

The ease with which the state attorneys general were able to make claims that contradict basic facts, void of any rigorous stress testing, is all the more striking when compared with the endless hoops that ordinary people have to jump through to prove their eligibility for financial aid or debt relief. This is what the sociologist Howard Becker calls the “hierarchy of credibility”: Those at the top of the social hierarchy don’t have to prove their claims; they’re just taken for granted. But claims made by those on the bottom are burdened by skepticism and demands for proof. In this instance, that difference may deprive millions of people of much-needed relief.

The loan agency at the center of this case is the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority. The plaintiffs claim that President Biden’s policy will cost the quasi-independent agency, known as MOHELA, “millions of dollars of revenue per year,” which could in turn prevent it from meeting its financial obligations to a state education fund. How would this happen? The plaintiffs are pretty vague about it.

“Nearly half” of student loans will be discharged under the Biden program, Nebraska’s solicitor general, James Campbell, told the court. “So it stands to reason that about half of MOHELA’s operating revenue from direct loans will be cut and overall that amounts to about 40 percent of its operating revenue.”

We’ve read all the evidence the plaintiffs submitted to back up that claim — and it does not, in fact, stand to reason. They offered a transcript from a Biden administration news conference and materials explaining the loan discharge process, but little about MOHELA’s finances or the impact of this policy on its bottom line.

As it turns out, MOHELA had been running these analyses regularly in the run-up to, and then immediately after, the announcement of the loan-forgiveness program. Wiping away all those loans would of course mean a hit to one source of MOHELA’s revenue. But that’s not the end of the story.

Our public records request revealed that overall, MOHELA will still have a banner year. Last August, the agency projected that even after the policy went into effect, it would make $97.2 million from servicing federal direct student loans — well over the $88.9 million it made in its previous fiscal year.

That’s because while it would be closing out some accounts, the loss would be more than offset by an infusion of new borrowers. Last July, the Department of Education gave a contract to the agency (despite its apparently terrible record) to service a huge number of new accounts related to a different loan program. This continues a recent trend: Overall, MOHELA’s direct loan borrowers have more than tripled from 2.5 million in 2020 to 7.7 million as of April.

MOHELA wouldn’t talk to us about any of this, so to double-check its projection, we ran our own, using data from the documents we received from our records request as well as publicly available government records. (Some of this research was first made public through the Roosevelt Institute.) Based on that information, a conservative estimate is that the agency’s annual revenue from direct loan servicing would nearly double to $175.6 million even if the loan cancellation policy kicks in. And it could make additional money from processing fees as it closes out accounts.

The case before the Supreme Court has already attracted criticism — even from conservative legal experts who have no love for the Biden administration’s policy. Through tortured logic, the State of Missouri has declared itself the injured party even though it’s the loan servicing company, a separate entity, that would lose revenue. Missouri claimed it would be a secondary victim, since the loan authority owes the state $105 million.

But think about that. If Amazon lays off my friend, and my friend owes me $20, can I sue Amazon for making it harder for me to get my money back?

Of course not. In this case, however, the point should be moot, because recent financial statements revealed MOHELA had not made those payments for the past 15 years, and does not appear to have plans to resume them.

Consider the plaintiffs’ reaction to a question that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked about the extent to which MOHELA might be harmed under the debt relief policy, given that it will receive fees for discharging accounts. “It’s very hard to believe,” said Mr. Campbell, the Nebraska solicitor general, “and the government doesn’t offer any details in its reply brief, that a one-time payment of fees for discharging loans will offset the ongoing fee that MOHELA earns from servicing those loans.”

Justice Jackson responded with apparent incredulity. “But isn’t that your burden?” she asked. “You are bringing this lawsuit and you have to establish standing. And so to the extent we’re trying to assess whether or not MOHELA is actually going to be injured, I don’t think you can answer ‘but the government hasn’t said something.’”

Even now, the loan agency would not answer our questions or discuss our research, despite written requests and phone call inquiries. The Missouri attorney general’s office told The Times, “To establish standing, MOHELA had to prove only that they would have less money.” But whether MOHELA has standing is irrelevant; the loan agency is not a party to the suit.

Compare that with the lengths that normal people must go to in order to prove they are eligible for debt relief. They have to submit mountains of documentation. Their claims are often denied for the most trivial of technicalities — a form filled out with green ink instead of black or blue, an electronic signature instead of an inked one.

Applicants for the older Public Service Loan Forgiveness program have to get paperwork signed from employers they had a decade ago. If a loan servicer transfers the account, the borrower may lose her payment history, and therefore her eligibility for relief. People who attended predatory for-profit colleges have had to submit extensive applications for relief, documenting their schools’ false allegations and misrepresentations. Even the Biden plan required an application.

That’s the “hierarchy of credibility.” Missouri says that the loan forgiveness policy could hamper MOHELA’s ability to repay its debts to the state. Missouri then filed a lawsuit — not against the agency, but on its behalf, to try to shore up its future revenues. How would the state act if an individual debtor said she couldn’t make her payments?

Should the justices affirm this claim, they would effectively be confirming a fake plaintiff, false facts and an unjust claim. Falsehoods about falsehoods would be a hard way to lose the debt relief the president promised to 43 million Americans and their families. And a Supreme Court that doesn’t scrutinize basic facts would be a further disgrace for a body already plagued by scandal.

Eleni Schirmer, a writer and postdoctoral fellow at the Concordia University Social Justice Center in Montreal, is an organizer for the Debt Collective. Louise Seamster is an assistant professor of sociology and African American studies at the University of Iowa, and a nonresident fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Biden forgives more than $6 billion in loans for 317,000 Art Institutes students

Student loan borrowers and advocates gather for the People's Rally To Cancel Student Debt During The Supreme Court Hearings On Student Debt Relief on February 28, 2023 in Washington, DC. Jemal Countess/Getty Images for People's Rally hide caption

Student loan borrowers and advocates gather for the People's Rally To Cancel Student Debt During The Supreme Court Hearings On Student Debt Relief on February 28, 2023 in Washington, DC.

President Biden announced on Wednesday that the White House would forgive more than $6.1 billion on student loan debt for 317,000 borrowers who attended The Art Institutes, a private art school system in the U.S. that shuttered last year.

The latest on student debt relief — and how young voters are feeling about it

"This institution falsified data, knowingly misled students, and cheated borrowers into taking on mountains of debt without leading to promising career prospects at the end of their studies," said Biden in a statement.

"We will never stop fighting to deliver relief to borrowers, hold bad actors accountable, and bring the promise of college to more Americans," the President added.

The relief will apply to students who were enrolled in the school system between January 1, 2004 and October 16, 2017, during which the U.S. Department of Education found that The Art Institutes made "pervasive and substantial misrepresentations to prospective students about postgraduation employment rates, salaries, and career services during that time," according to a statement from the DOE.

A $95.5 million settlement in a for-profit college case

The DOE will immediately begin notifying borrowers who are eligible for forgiveness, including those who have not formally applied for borrower defense. Previous payments made for student loans will also be refunded. The total available averages out to about $19,000 per borrower.

This latest round of student loan forgiveness brings the total approved by the Biden Administration to almost $160 billion for nearly 4.6 million borrowers, an average of nearly $35,000 per student.

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Opinion Is student loan debt an emergency? Take our quiz.

Student loan debt is so often described as a “crisis,” with anecdotes about crushing debt burdens seemingly easy to find, that saying so has become cliché. Responding to such cries, President Biden has pushed the bounds of his powers to forgive federally backed higher-education debt. Some even believe that university education should be free, or near-free, as it is in many other countries (though these nations’ university systems are notably less vibrant and prestigious). What do the facts suggest about how bad things have gotten, and what to do about it?

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The post partnered with gapminder, a swedish nonprofit, to survey 600 people ages 18 to 65. the sample was balanced to reflect u.s. demography., home mortgages account for the highest amount of debt in the united states, at $12 trillion. what is the next-greatest source of debt.

Forty-four million U.S. borrowers hold federal student loans — adding up to more than $1.6 trillion in debt. This seems like an impossibly large number. But it is a tad lower than the total amount Americans owe in auto loans. Consumer credit card debt stands at about $1.1 trillion.

What happened to the total amount lent in federal student loans in the past decade?

Outstanding student debt did increase between 2010 and 2020 , but the trend in borrowing the past several years has been downward; the average amount lent per student has decreased, too.

What percentage of federal student loan debt is from borrowers who owe more than $100,000?

Though they hold a big share of total student debt, six-figure borrowers represent less than 10 percent of all borrowers. Such massive loan balances are not the norm.

How does this small group accumulate such large debt balances? It turns out a huge proportion of outstanding student debt — a majority, according to some experts — is held by households in which the highest level of education is a master’s degree or higher — that is, people who paid for more education. Americans with professional and doctorate degrees are only 3 percent of the population but hold a vastly disproportionate share of the total. These borrowers also make more than twice the median income, usually over six figures in annual salary.

What is the average amount of debt a student leaves college with after completing a four-year bachelor’s degree?

This is largely because there’s a limit on the federal loans students can take out in the first place: roughly $31,000 for dependents. One caveat: Roughly half of students who went to for-profit schools owe $40,000 or more.

What percentage of borrowers who default on their student loans completed their degree?

Most borrowers who were in default during the pandemic — when the Education Department released the above statistics on the subject — didn’t complete their degrees. Most were also Pell Grant recipients — that is, the poorest borrowers. On the flip side, only 3.5 percent of those in default took out loans for graduate school.

So, is student debt a crisis? It depends on who’s in debt. People who complete their degrees, particularly if they didn’t come from poverty, tend to pay off their debt over time. That makes sense: In general, higher education is worth the cost. A typical worker with a bachelor’s degree has earned about $1 million more by the end of her career than her counterpart with only a high school diploma.

Forgiving loans, meanwhile, results in those who didn’t go to college subsidizing the tuition costs of those who did. That doesn’t mean it’s never a good idea. On the contrary, it’s precisely because a college education is so valuable that the government ought to make it easier for Americans to enroll. But the fairest system is one in which those whose degrees land them in comfortable circumstances pay off their loans — and those who are struggling, and therefore at most risk of default, don’t.

Janitors’ paychecks should not end up in dentists’ pockets.

President Biden’s Save plan, whose enrollees were treated to an additional $7.4 billion in debt cancellation this month, gestures at this principle with its focus on income-based repayment. And parts of the proposal , such as wiping out debt that has been held for more than 20 or 25 years while giving enrollees who borrowed relatively small amounts of money a chance to have debt canceled sooner, also make sense.

But the terms are too generous toward those who can do without the government’s beneficence. The income maximum is set at a very comfortable $125,000 for single people and $250,000 for married couples and heads of household, and the Urban Institute found that nearly half of bachelor’s degree recipients will end up paying less than half of their loans back. The result is not merely to provide a safety net to those for whom higher education proves a poor investment, as ought to be the case. It’s also to give a freebie to those whose plans worked out just fine — which really makes these arrangements not seem like loans at all.

Another problem: If loans seem to have no downside, colleges have scant incentive to contain tuition. Students won’t worry about sticker price if they feel they can get whatever they require to afford school for what will, in the end, amount to little or nothing.

There are ways to adjust the program so that it helps those who need it most while costing the public less: for instance, upping the share of income paid by better-off borrowers, relative to the share paid by those who earn less — similar to how progressive income taxation works. Most important, policymakers should focus on a connected, more acute crisis: those rising tuition rates that an unreasonably charitable student loan policy could encourage to continue upward.

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Biden has now cancelled 10% of all student debt, more loan forgiveness is coming.

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WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 02: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks from the Roosevelt Room of the White House ... [+] on May 02, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Biden administration announced a new batch of student loan forgiveness this week. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden announced a new batch of student loan forgiveness this week. With this latest round of debt relief, the administration has now approved upwards of $160 billion in loan forgiveness during the last three years, representing approximately 10% of all outstanding student debt.

Biden’s most recent group discharge approval is geared toward borrowers who attended schools accused of widespread misconduct. Providing debt relief for such borrowers has been a key component of the administration’s multi-pronged, piecemeal approach to implementing student loan forgiveness initiatives. Meanwhile, the Education Department is getting closer to launching a new mass student debt cancellation program.

“This is the latest – but not the last – step to hold bad actors accountable and get relief to folks who need it,” said Biden in a statement on X on Wednesday, indicating more loan forgiveness is in the works.

Biden’s Piecemeal Approach To Student Loan Forgiveness

In the wake of last summer’s Supreme Court decision striking down President Biden’s mass student loan forgiveness plan, the administration has utilized other tools to enact far-reaching relief. By updating, expanding, or relaxing regulations governing several existing loan forgiveness programs using executive authority, the Education Department has managed to cancel student loan debt for at least 4.6 million borrowers. This includes:

• Close to $50 billion in loan forgiveness through the IDR Account Adjustment , an initiative designed to address longstanding problems with income-driven repayment plans. Nearly a million borrowers have already benefited, and more borrower should qualify in the coming months as the Education Department completes implementation.
• Over $60 billion in loan forgiveness for close to 900,000 nonprofit and government works through fixes and improvements to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. This represents a 100-fold increase in PSLF approvals since 2020.
• Nearly $5 billion in debt relief through an “early” student loan forgiveness feature of Biden’s new SAVE plan, an income-driven option that results in lower payments and faster debt relief for many borrowers.
• More than $14 billion in discharges for borrowers with a disability, following regulatory changes that removed bureaucratic barriers and streamlined relief for many people struggling with disabling health conditions.

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Imessage s lock on america is this really the beginning of the end, arrowhead tells helldivers 2 players to change reviews to negative over psn linking, $28 billion in student loan forgiveness for borrowers harmed by school misconduct.

In addition, the Biden administration has approved more than $28 billion in student loan forgiveness for 1.6 million borrowers who were harmed by their schools, such as through misrepresentations or by closure. The Education Department has approved this relief under several existing programs such as Borrower Defense to Repayment and the Closed School Discharge initiative, as well as court settlements.

The latest round of debt cancellation announced this week centers on the Art Institutes, which the department found has engaged in a pattern of misleading prospective students about career prospects, earnings, and job placement services. More than 300,000 former Art Institute students will receive automatic group discharges in this latest batch of relief. This is similar to group discharges approved for former students of Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institutes, two other national for-profit college chains that closed.

“My Administration is cancelling $6.1 billion in debt for 317,000 borrowers who attended the Art Institutes, an institution that falsified data and cheated borrowers,” said President Biden in his statement on Wednesday.

Biden’s New Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Could Debut This Fall

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is finalizing plans to establish a new student loan forgiveness plan, intended as a so-called “Plan B” to the program that the Supreme Court blocked last year.

This new plan will target relief toward specific groups. This includes those who have experienced significant interest accrual and capitalization; those who entered repayment more than 20 or 25 years ago; people who qualify for existing student loan forgiveness plans but haven’t applied or enrolled; and former students who attended institutions that lost access to federal financial aid programs due to poor outcomes or were otherwise deemed to be “low-value” schools.

Last month, the Education Department released formal regulations governing the program after a lengthy rulemaking process. The regulations are now open to public comment until May 17th. After that, the department will release a final version of the regulations. The plan is not set to launch until sometime this fall, and is likely to face legal challenges.

Another Student Loan Forgiveness Option Based On Hardship

As part of Biden’s new broad-based loan forgiveness plan, the administration is also proposing a fifth pathway to relief based on hardship. The Education Department has not yet released proposed regulations governing this option. But based on a prior public rulemaking hearing, the department will likely consider multiple factors in evaluating a borrower’s eligibility for hardship-based loan forgiveness. These include age, disability, income, expenses, other debts, and prior approval for other public means-tested benefits.

Critics of President Biden’s piecemeal approach to student loan forgiveness have urged the administration to go as far as possible with this upcoming hardship-based debt relief initiative. Some advocates have called on Biden to classify student loan debt a hardship in and of itself, thereby wiping out most existing student loans .

However, the Education Department seems unlikely to do this. Officials believe that a targeted approach to debt relief is more likely to withstand legal challenges. But with a Supreme Court that seems hostile to any loan forgiveness initiative, it is unclear whether any broad-based debt cancellation plan would ultimately be upheld.

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More student loan forgiveness available, but April 30 deadline looms

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Californians who obtained federally backed student loans from private banks can have some or all of their remaining debt forgiven by the Biden administration, but they need to act fast: The deadline for qualifying is Tuesday.

The relief is available for students enrolled in income-driven repayment plans or the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. It’s also available for some parents who borrowed through the Federal Family Education Loan program.

This is not a new initiative, however — instead, it’s the last chance to participate in one of the administration’s first and most successful efforts to reduce the mountain of student debt.

The Education Department launched the Income Driven Repayment One-Time Adjustment initiative in 2022 to address complaints about loan servicing companies losing track of payments, not giving borrowers proper credit for their work in public-service jobs, and steering struggling borrowers into costly forbearance or deferment programs instead of payment plans based on their income.

After completing its review of payment records last year, the department granted all or partial forgiveness automatically to the borrowers who qualified — no application was required. The Education Department estimated that 3.6 million borrowers would receive credit for at least three additional years of payments, moving them that much closer to having their remaining debt wiped out.

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Biden administration announces another round of loan cancellation under new repayment plan

The Biden administration is canceling student loans for another 206,000 borrowers as part of a new repayment plan that offers a faster route to forgiveness

April 12, 2024

Under income-driven repayment plans, borrowers pay a monthly amount that’s a percentage of their income, regardless of the size of their debt. Those who stay current on their payments have all the remaining debt canceled after 10 years if they’re in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program; otherwise, those in income-based plans would have their debt canceled after 20 to 25 years of payments.

The recalculation applied only to loans issued directly by the federal government, however. That left out borrowers with federally backed loans issued by banks through the Perkins Loan, Federal Family Education Loan and Health Education Assistance Loan programs.

Those borrowers have one last chance to qualify . for a one-time adjustment. If they combine their federally backed loans into a federal direct consolidation loan before Wednesday, their previous payments on those loans will automatically be eligible for review.

Borrowers can apply online to consolidate their loans at the studentaid.gov website. To meet the deadline, the application just has to be submitted by the end of the day Tuesday — the approval can come later, said Celina Damian, the student loan servicing ombudsperson for the California Department of Financial Protection & Innovation.

As part of the one-time adjustment, the Education Department gives borrowers credit for the entire period when repayments were paused because of the pandemic. That’s a little more than three years’ worth of credits.

Biden proposes new student-debt relief. Here’s who would benefit

After months of negotiations, the administration is proposing a rule to reduce the debts of millions of borrowers. But the plan will likely face legal challenges.

April 8, 2024

In addition, the department is giving credits for payments made under any other type of repayment plan that the borrower was in before opting for an income-based plan. And it credits borrowers for months they spent in deferment or in lengthy periods of forbearance.

Borrowers whose adjusted payment counts push them over the 20-year (for most undergraduate loans) or 25-year (for graduate loans) thresholds will automatically have their remaining debt forgiven.

Although the Supreme Court rejected President Biden’s bid to provide debt relief to roughly 40 million borrowers in 2023, the administration has two other major efforts available or in the works. It has proposed a set of rules that would shrink the debt owed by about 30 million borrowers, and it has rolled out a new income-based repayment plan that has lower monthly payments and accrues less interest.

More to Read

$6.1 billion in student loan debt canceled for enrollees at for-profit Art Institutes

May 3, 2024

Granderson: College costing nearly $100,000 a year? Forgiving loans is the least we can do

California extends deadline for students seeking state financial aid amid FAFSA turmoil

March 25, 2024

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Jon Healey writes and edits stories for the Los Angeles Times’ Fast Break Desk, the team that dives into the biggest news of the moment. In his previous stints, he wrote and edited for the Utility Journalism team and The Times editorial board. He covered technology news for The Times from 2000 to mid-2005.

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Pradhan Mantri Vidya Lakshmi Karyakram - Towards a Bright Future

A fully IT based Student Financial Aid Authority has been proposed through the ' Pradhan Mantri Vidya Lakshmi Karyakram ', to administer and monitor Scholarship as well Educational Loan Schemes, with a view to enable all poor and middle class students to pursue higher education of their choice without any constraint of funds.

Vidya Lakshmi Portal is a first of its kind portal for students seeking Education Loan. It provides single window electronic platform for students to access information and prepares applications for Educational Loans and Government Scholarships. It provides information on the following:

• Educational Loan Schemes of various Banks
• Common Educational Loan Application Form for Students
• Application for Education Loan to multiple Banks
• Facility for Banks to download Students Loan Applications
• Facility for Banks to upload loan processing status
• Facility for Students to email grievances/queries relating to Educational Loans to Banks
• Linkage to National Scholarship Portal for information and application for Government Scholarships

This initiative aims to bring on board all Banks providing Educational Loans. It is expected that students throughout the country will be benefited by this initiative of the Government, by making available a single window for access to various Educational Loan Schemes of all Banks. The portal has been developed and being maintained by NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited.

39 Banks have registered 70 Educational Loan Schemes on the Vidya Lakshmi Portal and integrated their system with the Portal for providing loan processing status to students.

Alternatively, the applicant can also search for Educational Loan after login and apply for the suitable Educational Loan by filling the CELAF .

A student can apply to a maximum of three Banks through Vidya Lakshmi Portal using CELAF .

Guidelines for Registration on Vidya Lakshmi Portal

• Name - Please enter student name as mentioned on 10 th standard mark sheet or the mark sheet attached with your loan application.
• Mobile Number - Enter a valid mobile number. Student can provide mobile number of parent/guardian.
• Email ID - Enter a valid email ID. Email ID is not allowed to be changed later. All necessary communications will be sent on this email ID.

Various other unique measures have been taken to augment the quality and reach of education:

• ' Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya Mission ' for Teacher Training has been launched to enhance the quality of teaching.
• Global Initiative of Academic Network (GIAN) has been initiated to invite eminent faculty, scientists, and entrepreneurs from premier educational and scientific institutions across the world to teach in the higher educational institutions in the country during summer and winter breaks with a view to give international exposure to Indian students.
• SWAYAM will leverage Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to enable online education.
• National e-Library will facilitate universal access to educational material and knowledge sources.
• ShalaDarpan is a mobile technology to ensure that parents are connected to schools, enabling them to monitor the progress of their children.

Related Links

• Vidya Lakshmi Portal
• Indian Banks Association
• NSDL e-Governance
• Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya Mission
• Global Initiative of Academic Network
• ShalaDarpan
• National e-Library

Biden's new student-loan forgiveness plan has already received over 24,000 comments. There are 2 weeks left to give the administration input.

• There are two weeks left for the public to comment on Biden's new student-debt relief plan.
• Once the public comment period ends, the administration will move toward final implementation.
• Still, legal challenges and the election pose threats to the debt cancellation.

The American people have just two weeks left to give President Joe Biden's administration input on its new student-loan forgiveness plan .

On April 17, the Education Department published its draft rules for a broader version of debt relief to the Federal Register. First unveiled in early April, the new plan is expected to benefit over 30 million borrowers through a range of provisions, including canceling unpaid interest for borrowers and providing debt relief to those who have made at least 20 years of payments.

This new plan is intended to replace Biden's first attempt at relief that the Supreme Court struck down last summer. In contrast to the first plan, this one requires the administration to undergo a process known as negotiated rulemaking, which entails a series of negotiations with stakeholders and an opportunity for the public to comment on the plans before final implementation.

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The plan is now in the public comment period, and there are two weeks left for anyone who wishes to provide input on the administration's proposals. So far, according to the Federal Register , the plan has received 24,532 comments as of Friday morning.

The comments are available to be viewed publicly, and some of them were supportive of Biden's plan. One stated:

"The more student loan debt that can be forgiven the better. My mom's loans were forgiven last month, and it has changed her life. The period of time when my loans were paused allowed me to buy a home. My loans are currently in repayment, and if that burden could be lifted it would be life-changing for me."

Meanwhile, others were more critical:

"No if you borrow money you need to pay it back. why should people who are hard working pay for a lazy person school. student loans needs to be payed back by the borrower not by people who are working for a living."

Once the public comment period ends on May 17, the Education Department can choose to adjust its proposals based on the feedback it received or move ahead toward final implementation. In the coming months, the department also plans to unveil a separate proposal to get relief to borrowers experiencing financial hardship, which will also have a public comment period.

The department has said it plans to move as quickly as possible with the relief this fall, but not only does the presidential election bring uncertainty to the fate of the relief — it's highly likely legal challenges will once again attempt to block it from carrying out.

For example, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote on X that he would see Biden in court after the release of new details for the debt relief, and he already filed a lawsuit to block the SAVE income-driven repayment plan , arguing it was an overreach of the administration's authority.

Watch: Why student loans aren't canceled, and what Biden's going to do about it

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Student loan debt relief scams on the rise

The typical federal student loan balance is more than $37,000.

(InvestigateTV) — Americans owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt , according to the Education Data Initiative , making borrowers prime targets for debt relief scams.

U.S. Department of Education Assistant Inspector General for Investigations Jason Williams said student loan debt relief scams can come in many forms.

“They’re using social media. They’re listening to the newscasts that are talking about, you know, student loans and people are, you know, dealing with their debts,” Williams explained. “And they’re trying to take advantage of these things.”

He said some of the most common tactics fraudsters employ are unsolicited text messages, emails, telephone calls, and even direct mail through the U.S. Post Office.

“What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to, you know, get you to provide your information, especially for fee,” Williams said. “Which, you know, the Department of Education Office of Federal Student Aid will never charge you a fee to use their services.”

Williams said they have noticed an uptick in student loan forgiveness and debt relief scam complaints since 2022. It’s why they’re working hard to alert the public.

“We’ve had some really successful investigative activity. One of the cases that we just finished up is in California. Where you know a student, a company that was posing that they were loosely affiliated with the Department of Education was saying they could help borrowers, you know, reduce or, you know, get rid of their loans. And that simply wasn’t true,” Williams noted. “They were charging a fee to these people up to $1,300 and what they were doing was they were logging into peoples’ accounts, sharing their FSA ID, which you’re absolutely never to do and you know, using that information for their own means and a lot of people unfortunately missed student loan payments. They had, you know, interest added to their account and also some people defaulted on their loans.”

The fraudsters eventually received prison time and hundreds of dollars in restitution were given out to those victims.

Williams urged anyone who thinks they may have been a victim of a student loan scam to immediately reach out to their servicer at the Office of Federal Student Aid at StudentAid.gov .

Scams can also be reported to Office of Inspector General hotline that operates 24 hours a day.

Copyright 2024 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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