Policy- Biden is sending emails to 813,000 student-loan borrowers who got their loans wiped out in August.
- It's a result of account adjustments to ensure all borrowers' payments are accounted for.
Check your email: thousands of student-loan borrowers are starting to receive emails from Biden after their balances had been reduced to zero.
On Tuesday, the White House announced that about 813,000 borrowers who had their accounts adjusted in August will start to receive an email from President Joe Biden congratulating them on their loans being forgiven due to the Education Department's one-time account adjustment to evaluate which borrowers have met the qualifying payment threshold on their repayment plan.
A White House official said that the ongoing relief borrowers are seeing comes on the heels of many borrowers not getting proper credit toward payments made on income-driven repayment plans, which are intended to give borrowers payments based on their income with the promise of forgiveness after 20 or 25 years.
"Congratulations — your student loan has been forgiven because of actions my Administration took to make sure you receive the relief you earned and deserve," the email from Biden says.
"For too long, the student loan program failed to live up to its commitments – and millions like you never got the relief you were owed because of errors and administrative failures," the email said. "I vowed to fix that, and I'm proud that my Administration has delivered on that promise."
Over the past few months, a growing number of borrowers have been receiving debt relief through the Education Department's adjustments to borrowers' accounts. In October, 125,000 more borrowers got $9 billion in debt wiped out through not only income-driven repayment adjustments, but relief through Public Service Loan Forgiveness, as well.
This relief comes at a challenging time for borrowers. After an over three-year pause, federal student-loan payments resumed in October, and many borrowers have encountered a host of challenges — including inaccurate billing and communication issues with their servicer — due to the unprecedented transition back into repayment.
The Education Department has vowed to hold servicers accountable as borrowers make their payments, most recently withholding October pay from servicer MOHELA over failure to send billing statements on time to millions of borrowers.
On top of that, the department is also in the process of crafting its new plan for student-loan forgiveness after the Supreme Court in June struck down Biden's first attempt at broad relief. The department will meet with a group of negotiators for the third time in December to develop language for the final rule, which is set to be more narrow than the first time around.
Amid the repayment challenges and uncertainty with the next plan for relief, though, some borrowers have told Insider the relief the Education Department is carrying out has been significant for them.
"It's a relief because it's money that I can use for my family expenses, which will make a huge difference for me," George Tucker, a 63-year-old borrower, previously told Insider.
"My wife isn't working, and I have a daughter who just had a baby who is now seven months old, so I'm helping her right now," he continued. "She doesn't have the kind of income that she would need to be self- sustaining, so my wife and I are helping as much as possible. So this relief is going to help a lot."