President Joe Biden’s administration announced last week that it is taking applications as part of its sweeping plan to forgive student loan debt for millions of Americans. About 400 million borrowers are eligible for student debt relief, and another 20 million will have their entire balance canceled, according to the White House.
In announcing his plan, Biden said he was seeking to ease the increasing financial burdens that higher education tuition has placed on lower- and middle-class families. The administration launched an online application form last week to process requests for loan forgiveness, but cautioned that it is in a testing phase.
“We’re accepting applications to help us refine our processes ahead of the official form launch,” said a statement on the federal student loan forgiveness website. “If you submit an application, it will be processed when the form officially launches, and you won’t need to resubmit.”
The administration previously announced changes to its loan forgiveness plan after facing lawsuits from Republican-led states—Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina—that argued that the debt-relief plan would harm private companies that service federal student loans.
GOP state officials also argued that the president doesn’t have the power to make such a decision without…
