Today the Biden Administration released a draft of its new student loan debt cancellation plan, meant to provide relief for more than 25 million borrowers.

After President Biden’s Plan B for student loan debt relief was announced April 8, the U.S. Department of Education moved it forward this week as a proposed regulation.

“Today’s announcement shows that the Biden-Harris Administration is continuing to fulfill our promises to fix a broken higher education system,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in a statement.

Borrowers eligible for this relief include:

• Those making payments at least 20 years ago or longer on their undergraduate loans, or over 25 years on their graduate loans.
• Anyone who is or isn’t in an existing government debt cancellation program — such as the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan—who has not successfully applied “due to paperwork requirements, bad advice, or other obstacles.”
• Borrowers who took out a commercial loan under the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program and began making payments on or before July 1, 2000.
• And borrowers will get up to $20,000 of unpaid interest on their federal student debt forgiven, regardless of their income.
• A separate rule for those experiencing financial hardship will include “proposals to authorize the automatic forgiveness of loans for borrowers at a high risk of future default.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan debt relief plan in 2023, the administration has approved more than $153 billion in student loan debt cancellation for nearly 4.3 million borrowers.

The proposed rule will be officially published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, April 17 and it will then go through a 30-day public comment period before being finalized.

“Let’s go! For nearly a year, tens of millions of Americans have been held in suspended animation after a radical, right-wing, majority on the Supreme Court undid President Biden’s plan to provide modest student loan relief,” celebrating the process, Melissa Byrne, executive director and founder of We, the 45 Million said through a statement.

After the Department of Education reviews the comments, the agency will begin canceling borrower’s loans by fall 2024 and publish a second draft aimed at relief for borrowers experiencing hardships.