The Biden administration announced a new round of student debt loan forgiveness, this time for $6.1 billion. The measure will benefit 317,000 people who attended The Art Institutes, for-profit schools that shut down last year amid allegations of fraud.
The institution operated in different cities across the country, including Atlanta, New York and Tampa. It closed its doors permanently last September after the Department of Education determined it had misrepresented its graduates’ employment rates and salaries.
“We must continue to protect borrowers from predatory institutions — and work toward a higher education system that is affordable to students and taxpayers,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in a statement following the announcement.
In another statement, Biden highlighted that his administration has so far forgiven $29 billion in debt to 1.6 million students “whose colleges took advantage of them, closed abruptly or were covered by related court settlements.” More generally, it has forgiven over $160 billion for over 4.5 million borrowers.
The announcement comes less than a month after the White House’s last round of debt cancellation, which amounted to $7.4 billion and benefited 277,000 borrowers. Over 200,000 of them were enrolled in the SAVE plan, while an additional 65,000 are in “income-driven repayment plans and 4,600 through fixes to Public Service Loan Forgiveness.