Biden to cancel $6B in student loans for 78,000 public service workers

March 21 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden on Thursday announced his administration will forgive student loans for thousands of public service workers.

Biden said the latest round of forgiveness will cancel $6 billion in student debt for 78,000 teachers, nurses, firefighters and other public service employees.

"These public service workers have dedicated their careers to serving their communities, but because of past administrative failures, never got the relief they were entitled to under the law," Biden said.

Biden said his administration has now canceled the student debt of more than 870,000 public service workers as part of the White House's effort to cancel or reduce student debt since the Supreme Court outlawed its larger student debt reduction program last year.

"Through all of our various student debt relief actions, nearly four million Americans have had their student debt canceled under my administration," Biden said.

In January, the White House said it canceled nearly $5 billion in student loans for 74,000 borrowers. Most of those affected were public service workers who had paid on their loans faithfully for more than 10 years.

"From day one of my administration, I promised to fix broken student loan programs and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class," Biden said on Thursday.

"I won't back down from using every tool at my disposal to deliver student debt relief to more Americans, and build an economy from the middle out and bottom up."