SPECIAL REPORT: How student debt forgiveness plan could help college students on the Central Coast

MONTEREY COUNTY, California (KION-TV) In mid-August, President Biden along with the U.S. Department of Education, announced its plan to ease the transition for middle and working-class students to regular payments by forgiving student loan debt.

Students like Mariela Medrano, who's majoring in microbiology at CSUMB to become a pediatric oncologist, would be able to receive up to $20,000 in debt relief as a Federal Pell Grant Recipient or up to $10,000 in debt relief to non-Pell Grant recipients.

Borrowers with loans held by the Department of Education would be eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 (or $250,000 for households).

On average, Latinos studying medicine reported the lowest median household income ($70,000) and the highest median anticipated percentage of medical school financed with loans, 61% in 2019.

"If I get my student loans pardoned or forgiven, that money that I was going to use to pay for my loans, I can actually use it for my education, like medical school, my master's degree," Medrano said. "Because, sadly, college is really expensive and it's really hard to afford."

The U.S. Department of Education received around 26 million applications for student loan forgiveness before a federal judge stopped the program in November.

The Biden administration said it had approved 16 million of those applications but hasn't transferred any money because of the ongoing lawsuits. 

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in February, among them:

• Six Republican-led states argue that the Biden administration does not have the authority to so broadly cancel federal student loan debt.
• Two borrowers who do not qualify for full debt relief say they were denied an opportunity to comment on the secretary of education's decision to establish the forgiveness program.

The Biden administration's argument to follow through with the program is that Congress gave the secretary of education "expansive authority to alleviate the hardship that federal student loan recipients may suffer as a result of national emergencies" like the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a memo from the Department of Justice.