President Joe Biden on Friday highlighted the launch of his student loan forgiveness program at a historically Black university in his home state of Delaware, announcing that nearly 22 million people have applied since the application launched nearly one week ago.
Biden spoke at Delaware State University, where more than 75% of students received a Pell grant to pay for tuition, according to a White House official. The president’s plan will provide up to $20,000 in forgiveness for borrowers who received the grants for school.
He announced that nearly 22 million people had submitted an application, one day after two separate courts rejected legal challenges to the plan.
Biden had kicked off the program Monday by announcing the launch of the application for debt relief, after the Department of Education opened a beta version last Friday. It's through a simple online portal where people can submit information to see if they qualify for relief.
Borrowers qualify for up to $10,000 in forgiveness if they made less than $125,000 per year in 2020 or 2021, or up to $20,000 for Pell grant recipients.
Biden on Friday depicted debt relief as a "game-changer" for millions of working and middle-class Americans, especially borrowers of color.
"We're hearing from people all over the country. Over 10,000 students have written me letters so far," Biden said. "It's about as easy to apply as signing up while hanging out with your friends or at home and watching a movie."
Of the approximate 40 million Americans who are eligible for student loan relief, more than 60% are Pell grant recipients.
Plus, 71% of Black borrowers are Pell recipients, along with 65% of Latino borrowers.
The Biden administration has pointed to the fact that 90% of relief will go to Americans making less than $75,000 per year.
"Our student loan plan lowers costs for Americans as they recover from the pandemic, to give everybody a little more breathing room," the president said Friday. "I want to be clear who's going to benefit most: working people, middle-class folks."
On Thursday, a federal judge dismissed an effort by six Republican-led states to block the plan, hours after Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an appeal in another case brought by a Wisconsin taxpayers group.
President Biden on Friday renewed criticisms of Republicans who have sharply attacked the student loan relief plan as costly and unfair, painting some of them as hypocritical for having gotten pandemic relief loans forgiven. He called out Texas Sentor Ted Cruz for saying loan relief would benefit "slacker baristas."
"Who in the hell do they think they are?" Biden said.
"We can afford student relief," he added, pointing to his work to reduce the federal deficit.
Republicans, meanwhile, have also pointed to the cost of the plan, which is expected to cost $400 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“He's wanting to give [relief] to those who went to Ivy League schools and have high dollar degrees,” Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who is leading GOP states’ challenge to Biden’s program, said in an interview with Fox News earlier this month.
“Putting that debt on the backs of hardworking Americans — and our plumbers and mechanics, machinists and nurses and teachers — and so this is against the law … and it's patently unfair,” she said.
Biden on Friday also highlighted Historically Black Colleges and Universities as playing "an important role in creating opportunity and possibilities all across the country," praising the students at Delaware State.
"You're an example of why I'm so optimistic -- all of you are -- so optimistic about the future. You are the most involved. You are the most educated. You are the most engaged," the said. "Thank you for what you're doing."