The Biden administration is forgiving $4.5 billion in student loan debt for over 60,000 public service workers as part of the White House's Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. This will benefit teachers, nurses, firefighters, lawyers, and other public service professionals working at various states levels or at nonprofit organizations.

"One of the impacts that student loans have is that it makes it more difficult for people to go into public service because they take out the same amount of loans, but they have to accept a lower salary," US Department of Education Under Secretary James Kvaal tells Brad Smith on Wealth.

Kvaal acknowledges the challenges public service workers faced in receiving student loan relief in the past: "We've changed how we administer the program, and we want to make sure that student debt doesn't stand in a way, when young people want to become a teacher or a nurse or a first responder, we have to make it possible for people to give back."

In 2024 alone, President Biden forgave $3.2 billion in student debt for 43,900 public service workers in January, and then an additional $1.2 billion for 35,000 workers in July. Debt relief under the PSLF program now totals over $70 billion since October 2021.

"Some people say, 'it's not my problem, they chose to take out the loan,' but the reality is for these 40 million people, it's not just an economic weight for them, it's for their families," Kvaal says on the broader burden for all Americans with student debt. "It makes it harder to buy a home, to start a business, to go into a public service job. So it's really a problem for all of us and something that we all need to help fix as the student debt crisis."

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This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.