President Joe Biden speaks during a trilateral meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, April 11, 2024. . More people are becoming eligible for student loan cancellation as they hit 10 years of payments, a new finish line for some loans that’s a decade sooner than what borrowers faced in the past.
Arguing that today’s borrowers need even more help, the Biden administration merged most of those plans into a single repayment option with more lenient terms. In a call with reporters, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the plan provides relief and prevents borrowers from falling behind on their loans.
The Biden administration says it’s designed to help those who need it most. Counterintuitively, those with smaller student loan balances tend to struggle more. It’s driven by millions of Americans who take out student loans but don’t finish degrees, leaving them with the downside of debt without the upside of a higher income.
The lawsuits don’t directly address the question, and the attorneys general didn’t immediately respond to an Associated Press request.