Thousands of Wyoming residents are waiting to see if a sizeable amount of their student loan debt will be forgiven by the Biden Administration – a decision now in the hands of the Supreme Court.
The Biden-Harris Administration released new data showing the number of people in each state who applied for student debt relief or were automatically eligible for relief.
“These borrowers could benefit from the Administration’s program right now were it not for lawsuits brought by elected officials and special interests,” reads the Jan. 27 release.
In August, President Biden announced his Administration’s plan to provide up to $20,000 in debt relief for borrowers earning less than $125,000 per year. The Administration’s program aimed to protect borrowers most at risk of delinquency or default due to hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic when the payment pause ends.
In the less than four weeks that the application was available, 26 million people either applied for debt relief or had already provided sufficient information to the Department of Education (Department) to be deemed eligible for relief.
Over 16 million of those borrowers’ applications were fully approved by the Department and sent to loan servicers. However, in November of last year– less than a month after the application was first released – the Department was required to stop accepting applications due to lawsuits brought by opponents of the program. Loan servicers were thus prevented from discharging any debt.
Overall, more than 40 million borrowers would qualify for the Biden Administration’s debt relief program. Nearly 90% of the relief benefits going to out-of-school borrowers would go to those earning less than $75,000 per year. Millions of those borrowers could be experiencing the benefits of that relief today – were it not for lawsuits brought on by elected officials in some of their own states.
Courtesy Unsplash
30,000 Wyomingites applied for student debt relief, and 18,000 had applications for forgiveness submitted to their loan servicers.
Both Wyoming senators – John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis – are adamantly against student debt relief. The two senators joined a collective that reintroduced the Debt Cancellation Accountability Act, spearheaded by Senator Rick Scott of Florida.
Below is a full breakdown of how many people applied for debt relief and whose applications were approved by the Department before the Administration was blocked from discharging debt, rounded to the nearest thousand.
For more information, visit StudentAid.gov/debtrelief.
| State | Number of people who applied or were deemed automatically eligible for relief | Number of fully-approved applications sent to loan servicers for discharge |
| Alabama | 373,000 | 238,000 |
| Alaska | 38,000 | 24,000 |
| Arizona | 496,000 | 314,000 |
| Arkansas | 222,000 | 144,000 |
| California | 2,315,000 | 1,473,000 |
| Colorado | 471,000 | 295,000 |
| Connecticut | 321,000 | 208,000 |
| Delaware | 81,000 | 52,000 |
| District of Columbia | 72,000 | 46,000 |
| Florida | 1,598,000 | 1,047,000 |
| Georgia | 1,012,000 | 642,000 |
| Hawaii | 74,000 | 46,000 |
| Idaho | 126,000 | 79,000 |
| Illinois | 1,044,000 | 679,000 |
| Indiana | 542,000 | 348,000 |
| Iowa | 264,000 | 169,000 |
| Kansas | 228,000 | 143,000 |
| Kentucky | 362,000 | 241,000 |
| Louisiana | 381,000 | 242,000 |
| Maine | 116,000 | 74,000 |
| Maryland | 522,000 | 323,000 |
| Massachusetts | 593,000 | 380,000 |
| Michigan | 864,000 | 566,000 |
| Minnesota | 507,000 | 327,000 |
| Mississippi | 248,000 | 160,000 |
| Missouri | 484,000 | 305,000 |
| Montana | 75,000 | 46,000 |
| Nebraska | 154,000 | 97,000 |
| Nevada | 198,000 | 128,000 |
| New Hampshire | 121,000 | 77,000 |
| New Jersey | 759,000 | 493,000 |
| New Mexico | 125,000 | 77,000 |
| New York | 1,549,000 | 998,000 |
| North Carolina | 812,000 | 522,000 |
| North Dakota | 53,000 | 32,000 |
| Ohio | 1,079,000 | 702,000 |
| Oklahoma | 270,000 | 172,000 |
| Oregon | 329,000 | 211,000 |
| Pennsylvania | 1,157,000 | 743,000 |
| Puerto Rico | 204,000 | 145,000 |
| Rhode Island | 96,000 | 63,000 |
| South Carolina | 442,000 | 282,000 |
| South Dakota | 73,000 | 46,000 |
| Tennessee | 517,000 | 336,000 |
| Texas | 2,163,000 | 1,391,000 |
| Utah | 191,000 | 121,000 |
| Vermont | 52,000 | 33,000 |
| Virginia | 685,000 | 429,000 |
| Washington | 486,000 | 308,000 |
| West Virginia | 131,000 | 85,000 |
| Wisconsin | 465,000 | 302,000 |
| Wyoming | 30,000 | 18,000 |
| All Other Locations* | 58,000 | 33,000 |
| State Not Identified** | 632,000 | 31,000 |
| Total | 26,260,000 | 16,486,000 |
