Whether a large portion of federal student-loan borrowers will have some debt canceled remains to be seen, but some students have already received a different kind of debt forgiveness.
In 2021, more than 1,400 institutions of higher education discharged nearly $1.5 billion in money students owed to the schools, the Biden administration announced Wednesday. Advocates have been concerned for years about how this so-called institutional debt can keep students from completing their degrees.
The American Rescue Plan funds allowed Delaware State to “remove those barriers so our students could walk across that graduation stage and start their careers,” Tony Allen, the president of the school said during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. The debt relief was just one way colleges deployed funds from the government to keep students in school during the pandemic. In 2021, colleges handed out $19.5 billion in emergency financial help to nearly 13 million students, with the money going toward things like food, housing and child care, according to the Department of Education.