ANKARA

The US Department of Education announced Tuesday that it has reached a settlement agreement with the State of Missouri to permanently end the Biden-era “Saving on a Valuable Education” (SAVE) plan, an income-driven repayment program that had faced repeated legal challenges.

The agreement, which still requires court approval, follows years of legal disputes and marks the current Trump administration’s move to unwind one of the Biden administration’s key student loan initiatives.

“For four years, the Biden Administration sought to unlawfully shift student loan debt onto American taxpayers,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement. “The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back.”

In February 2024, the Biden administration fast-tracked a SAVE provision, delivering $1.2 billion in loan forgiveness to nearly 153,000 borrowers who had repaid for at least 10 years on original loans of $12,000 or less.

The Department of Education said it will soon contact the roughly 7.6 million current SAVE borrowers and 450,000 applicants to help them transition to legal repayment plans, including the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), which is set to launch by July 2026.

Student Debt Crisis Center (SDCC) President and Founder Natalie Abrams called the decision “devastating for the nearly 8 million borrowers who relied on SAVE,” warning that it “exacerbates years of uncertainty and pushes families closer to financial crisis.”

The termination of the SAVE plan adds another layer to a broader student loan crisis that remains enormous in scale.

According to federal data, more than 42 million Americans currently hold federal student loan debt, with total outstanding balances exceeding $1.67 trillion.