GREENSBORO, N.C. – When the Biden administration announced plans to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans for low-income borrowers, UNC Greensboro junior Brittany Jarrell breathed a sigh of relief.

“If I didn’t take financial aid, I wouldn’t be able to go to college,” Jarrell said.

What You Need To Know

  • The Biden administration announced plans to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans for low-income borrowers

  • Students such as Brittany Jarrell, a junior at UNC Greensboro, increasingly rely on financial aid for college

  • Individual borrowers who make less than $125,000 and couples making less than $250,000 will qualify for $10,000 of debt forgiveness, and Pell Grant recipients get another $10,000 in debt relief

Jarrell hopes to become a librarian, which means she can also take advantage of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness initiative. 

President Joe Biden’s student loan relief plan included changes to the PSLF program.

Under Biden’s proposal, individual borrowers who make less than $125,000 and couples making less than $250,000 will qualify for $10,000 of debt forgiveness, and Pell Grant recipients get another $10,000 forgiven.

The debt relief will apply only to loans held by the Department of Education.

The administration recently forgave $3.9 billion in loan debt for students who attended ITT Tech after the school was found to have made “pervasive misrepresentations.”

That program was temporarily expanded to give borrowers credit for past periods of loan repayment that wouldn’t normally qualify in the program.

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