President Joe Biden on Thursday said an additional $4.5 billion in student debt is being canceled for about 60,000 teachers, nurses, firefighters and others, bringing the number of public service workers to get relief during his administration to more than 1 million. More than $73 billion in loans have been forgiven under a 2007 initiative, according to an Education Department news release. Borrowers eligible for the latest round of relief should learn of their debt being cleared in coming weeks. The borrowers getting relieved of debt are benefitting from reforms to the government's Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The PSLF program, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007, lets certain not-for-profit and government employees have their federal student loans canceled after 10 years of monthly payments.

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it is forgiving the student loans for more than 60,000 public service workers. The move gives $4.5 billion in debt relief to teachers, firefighters and other eligible workers who have been paying on their loans for more than 10 years. The administration credits the relief to fixes it has made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program over the past four years, which has resulted in more than 1 million public service workers seeing loan forgiveness, costing some $175 billion.

The Department of Education said in a news release the relief came about from "significant fixes" to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program. The action brings the total loan forgiveness approved by President Biden to more than $175 billion for 4.8 million Americans, including $74 billion for more than one million borrowers through PSLF. "When President Biden and I took office, only 7,000 people had ever been approved for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Today, I am proud to say that a record one million teachers, nurses, first responders, social workers, and other public service workers have received student debt cancelation," Vice President Kamala Harris said in a White House statement. A White House announcement Thursday morning put the total value of the handouts at $4.7 billion but later adjusted it to $4.5 billion.