NEW: President Biden Announces Plans To Cancel Student Debt for Over 30 Million Americans

MADISON, Wis. — Today, President Biden visited Wisconsin to announce further relief for Americans overburdened by student loans through new plans to strengthen existing debt relief and cancel accrued interest for over 30 million Americans. In response, Democratic Party of Wisconsin Communications Director Joe Oslund released the following statement:

“President Biden and Vice President Harris believe higher education should be a ticket to the middle class, not a burden, and announced today additional relief for Wisconsinites reeling from a broken student loan system. This is in stark contrast to Donald Trump, who used his time in the White House to do the bidding of predatory, for-profit colleges—burying investigations in misconduct and rewrite regulations meant to protect student borrowers. While Trump and his MAGA allies want to leave Wisconsin families out to dry, President Biden and Vice President Harris are working every single day to make sure they have what they need to get ahead.”

Here’s a look at how President Biden is providing relief for Wisconsinites:

• Last year, the administration launched the most affordable student loan repayment plan – SAVE – which makes many borrowers’ monthly payments as low as $0 and prevents balances from growing because of unpaid interest when the full monthly payment is made. Over 13,000 Wisconsinites have reaped the benefits of the SAVE plan.
   
• The Biden-Harris administration secured the largest increase to Pell Grants in a decade, and finalized new rules to protect borrowers from career programs that leave graduates with unaffordable debts or insufficient earnings.
   
• In the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the administration’s original student debt relief plan, President Biden announced an alternative path to debt relief through negotiated rulemaking under the Higher Education Act.
   
• The Biden-Harris administration’s leadership on student debt relief addresses the disproportionate impacts student debt places on communities of color.
   
• As President, Donald Trump installed Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education and empowered a revolving door of lobbyists to help rewrite the rules to benefit the predatory for-profit college industry. Under Trump, federal investigations into predatory, for-profit schools were buried and a top industry executive for a for-profit college accused of deceptive student lending was empowered as a key official under DeVos.

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