LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KATV) — On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona traveled to Arkansas to discuss student debt forgiveness during a roundtable session in Little Rock.
He took time to engage with borrowers approved for relief through major forgiveness programs like PSLF, IDR, SAVE, and TPD, aligning with the Biden-Harris Administration’s pledge to reform the student loan system.
RELATED STORY: Biden student loan forgiveness plan saves Arkansans $8.7 million
During his visit, Cardona sat down for an exclusive one-on-one interview with KATV’s Beth Hunt saying this trip is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to fixing the broken student loan system.
“I’m a parent of a high school senior myself. So not only a secretary but as a parent. I was experiencing this. The system hasn’t been touched in 40 years, and it was time to overhaul it,” Cardona said.
The Biden Administration has already canceled more debt than any other administration in history.
To date, the administration has approved debt cancellation for 4.3 million hard-working Americans totaling almost $146 billion in relief.
Cardona outlined a plan in the interview, highlighting the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and its bipartisan roots from 2007.
“The Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan says if you serve the public, because most public servants don’t go into to become millionaires if you serve the public for 10 years, and you pay your loans, you’re eligible for debt relief.” he said.
RELATED STORY: Biden administration cancels student loans for 206,000 more borrowers under SAVE Plan
Ahead of Cardona’s visit to the Natural State, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders to aim at the visit and harshly criticized the student loan forgiveness programs being rolled out by the Biden Administration.
“Your department is a constant source of frustration for Americans and Arkansans,” Sanders wrote in a letter that was sent to Cardona’s office on Monday. “We welcome you to our state, but we fear that this visit will only serve to highlight some of your administration’s worst mistakes.”
Sanders criticized the Biden administration’s forgiveness of “certain student loans” as “unfair, unwise, and unlawful.”
Just last month, Attorney General Tim Griffin announced that his office was joining ongoing lawsuits against the Biden Administration’s student loan programs.
“President Biden has already lost on this question once, and he is refusing to follow the law. The Supreme Court could not have been clearer: President Biden cannot unilaterally cancel student debt and force taxpayers to bear the multi-billion-dollar cost,” said Griffin.
During his interview with KATV, Cardona took time to address the criticism.
“I feel that there’s a lot of hypocrisy when some of the folks who’ve challenged us. Republican lawmakers have benefited from debt forgiveness themselves. I also think it’s talking about being unfair, the tax breaks that were passed in the last administration for billionaires. That, to me, is unfair,” Cardona told KATV.
Cardona expresses confidence in the legality of the debt relief plans and discusses initiatives to address college affordability and FAFSA challenges.
According to data released by the Biden-Harris Administration, student loan borrowers in Arkansas have received over $8.7 million in debt forgiveness.
The U.S. Department of Education is expected to continue working to identify and forgive loans for borrowers enrolled in SAVE regularly.
This article was originally published by a katv.com . Read the Original article here. .