US President Biden announces USD 5 billion debt cancellation for over 74,000 students

US President Joe Biden on Friday announced cancellation of USD 5 billion in debt for more than 74,000 students, many of whom are Indian Americans. Cancelling student debt was one of the key poll promises of Biden in the 2020 elections.

"Today, my administration approved debt cancellation for another 74,000 student loan borrowers across the country, bringing the total number of people who have gotten their debt cancelled under my administration to over 3.7 million Americans through various actions," Biden said.

Of the 74,000 borrowers approved for relief on Friday, nearly 44,000 of them are teachers, nurses, firefighters and other individuals who earned forgiveness after 10 years of public service, and close to 30,000 of them are people who have been in repayment for at least 20 years but never got the relief they earned through income-driven repayment plans, he said.


While the list is not maintained based on ethnicity, officials said a large number of them are Indian Americans.

"My administration is able to deliver relief to these borrowers - and millions more - because of fixes we made to broken student loan programmes that were preventing borrowers from getting relief they were entitled to under the law," Biden said.