Key Takeaways
- Educators like Murphy have had their student loans forgiven, thanks to reforms to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program made by the Biden-Harris administration.
- Under Donald Trump and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, 99.8% of PSLF applications were rejected. The Biden-Harris administration was determined to fix that and overhauled the program.
- To date, the Biden-Harris administration has forgiven $68 billion of student loans for more than 942,000 educators through PSLF.
Tyler's Story
Last fall, high school social studies teacher Tyler Murphy noticed his student loan payment wasn’t withdrawn from his bank account as scheduled.
He logged into his loan servicer website to figure out what was going on.
“I pulled up my account and it said, ‘Amount owed: $0.’ All the little bars on the payment tracker were filled in green,” Murphy recalls.
For a few moments, he couldn’t believe it. But thanks to Public Service Loan Forgiveness—a priority for the Biden-Harris administration—his student debt had been forgiven. Murphy knew he was on track with his payments, which he had meticulously monitored. Still, he crossed the finish line more quickly than expected because of improvements to PSLF.
So many borrowers in the past have gotten to the point where the interest is accruing at a rate that makes it essentially impossible for them to ever claw their way out on an educator’s salary.
Since October 2021, more than 793,000 borrowers serving as public employees have been granted $56.7 billion in student loan forgiveness through PSLF. Vice President Harris intends to continue the work to ensure that educators can live without the crushing weight of student debt.
For Murphy, who is starting his seventh year teaching at Boyle County High School in Danville, Ky., having more than $50,000 in debt forgiven has given him room to breathe.
“I’ve been surprised how much more flexibility it has given me for things like saving for retirement and that elusive goal for my generation, as a millennial, of home ownership,” Murphy says.
“So many borrowers in the past have gotten to the point where the interest is accruing at a rate that makes it essentially impossible for them to ever claw their way out on an educator’s salary,” he says.
“Kamala Harris thinks we deserve better,” Murphy adds. “And her efforts reflect that.”
