The U.S. Department of Education and the Biden administration confirmed Tuesday that 1,690 former students in Hawaii will be eligible for automatic loan relief as part of the president’s student loan forgiveness plan.
The decision will eliminate roughly $90.2 million in debt from eligible student loan borrowers throughout the state.
Recent graduates will be excluded from the relief, as qualification is based on those who completed nearly two decades worth of payments. Those seeking relief need to have made at least 240 or 300 total monthly payments on their loans, depending on the type of program borrowers are in.
Qualifying borrowers will not have to take any action to receive the income-driven repayment, or IDR forgiveness, and were notified via email this month.
Discharges are set to begin 30 days after the initial emails were sent.
Nationwide, the income-driven repayment plan is estimated to provide $39 billion in loan forgiveness relief for 804,000 borrowers, with the Biden administration having approved more than $116.6 billion in student loan forgiveness for more than 3.4 million borrowers.
“Thanks to the Biden administration, nearly 1,700 people across Hawaii will see thousands of dollars in student loan debt eliminated in the next few weeks,” said U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) in a press release. ”It will save people money and give them some real relief on their student loans.”