Bernie Sanders Appeals to Biden to Cancel All $1.8 Trillion of Student Loan Debt

The US Department of Education has canceled another $415 million in student loan debt. Nearly 16,000 borrowers misled by for-profit colleges will receive $415 million in borrower defense to repayment discharges, the department has announced.

According to a press release issued by the Department of Education, the decision includes some 1,800 former DeVry University students who will receive nearly $71.7 million in full borrower defense discharges following department’s findings that the university caused confusion about its job placement rates.

More borrowers might receive relief as the department continues to review the remaining applications. However, after this announcement, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had proposed to cancel all of the student loan debt, including private and federal student loans, wrote on a Twitter post that President Joe Biden must erase all $1.8 trillion of student debt.

“Good. Now cancel the remaining $1,883,214,046,704 for 44,984,000 other Americans who are still drowning in student debt,” Sanders tweeted on February 18.

Differently, Biden supports the cancellation of up to $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have suggested erasing up to $50,000 of student loans.

So far, under the US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, the Education Department has canceled about $2 billion of student loans in total for more than 107,000 individuals.

In a statement, Cardona said that the department remains committed to providing borrowers discharges when there is evidence that their education institution violated the law.

“Students count on their colleges to be truthful. Unfortunately, today’s findings show too many instances in which students were misled into loans at institutions or programs that could not deliver what they’d promised,” Cardona stressed.

Meanwhile, Federal Student Aid Chief Operating Officer Richard Cordray pointed out that they would “not look the other way” when there are colleges that put their personal interest ahead of students.

The Education Department found that between 2008 and 2015, DeVry University misled potential students in the United States, telling that 90 percent of graduates at the institution were employed in their field of study within six months of graduation. In reality, the job placement rate was 58 percent.

“This claim was the foundation of a national advertising campaign called, “We Major in Careers” to brand DeVry as a “Career Placement University” where it used the 90 percent placement statistic as the way to convince prospective students to enroll,” the department said.

Findings have shown that students were working in most jobs included in the 90 percent placement rate before graduating from DeVry University and in some cases, even before enrollment.