The Department of Education announced Thursday that thousands of students with total and permanent disabilities would be given $5.8 billion in student loan discharges.
The offer will apply to more than 323,000 students identified through a data match with the Social Security Administration, and the debt forgiveness is expected to conclude by the end of the year.
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said these decisions would allow the department to ensure that educational opportunities are accessible to all.
“We’ve heard loud and clear from borrowers with disabilities and advocates about the need for this change, and we are excited to follow through on it,” the secretary said in Thursday’s statement. “This change reduces red tape with the aim of making processes as simple as possible for borrowers who need support.”
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Officials will refuse to ask students to provide information on their earnings, a continuation of a policy introduced last March, and the protocol will remain in place “indefinitely,” the department said.
The department also announced it would seek to discontinue the requirement mandating students to be monitored for three years before their debt is forgiven. This process required students to submit proof that they were not exceeding the poverty guideline amount for a family of two, regardless of the actual family size of the borrowers.
The problem with this process was that students forgot to submit documentation of their earnings for the three-year duration, the department argued, citing a 2016 Government Accountability Office report that found that 98% of students required their debt discharges to be reinstated due to failure to submit proper documentation.
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The debt forgiveness for students with disabilities marks another step that Democrats have taken toward the elimination of student debt. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden extended coronavirus student loan relief to the end of January 2022, with the president also saying in April that he was looking into executive authority to cancel student debt.
Student debt in the U.S. topped $1 trillion in 2021, according to multiple outlets.
