President Biden canceled another $4.5 billion in student loans for 60,000 public workers Thursday, as his administration battles a coalition of GOP-led states in federal court to try to unilaterally cancel tens of billions more. 

Biden, 81, announced that more than 1 million public service employees have now had their loans forgiven, including teachers, firefighters, nurses and other public servants.

“For too long, the government failed to live up to its commitments,” he said in a statement. “We vowed to fix that, and because of actions from our administration, now over 1 million public service workers have gotten the relief they are entitled to under the law.”

Congressional Republicans and conservatives have described Biden’s loan cancellations as a brazen attempt to “buy votes” from young and educated members of the Democratic constituency in an election year.

The Department of Education created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program in 2007, promising college graduates that the remainder of their federal student loans would be wiped away after 10 years working in government or nonprofit jobs.

Under former President Donald Trump, however, a change in eligibility rules denied up to 99% of applicants, according to a 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office.

The Education Department denied most applicants because they weren’t in the right loan repayment plan or because their payments had temporarily been paused through deferment or forbearance — periods that weren’t counted toward the 10 years of public work.

Just 7,000 had their debt canceled by the time Biden took office.

In 2021, the administration reversed course by handing out temporary waivers to student borrowers that gave them credit for the periods of deferment or forbearance.

The Biden Education Department later updated federal rules to make the eligibility more permanent — and has canceled $74 billion through the program.

Overall, the administration has forgiven $175 billion in loans for roughly 5 million student borrowers.

“I want to send a message to college students across America that pursuing a career in public service is not only a noble calling but a reliable pathway to becoming debt-free within a decade,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

At the same time, Biden and Cardona are in a legal battle with seven Republican attorneys general over nearly $147 billion the administration intends to cancel for 27.6 additional student borrowers.

A Missouri federal judge placed a preliminary injunction on the plan earlier this month after the AGs argued it would “unlawfully” cancel the students’ debt, harm the states’ tax revenue and force working Americans to bear the burden of other citizens’ loans.

Federal courts and the US Supreme Court had already halted two earlier mass cancellation attempts, but the most recent twelve-figure loan forgiveness plan would have automatically enrolled students “with at least one outstanding federally held student loan” unless they opted out.

The Supreme Court halted the first effort in June 2023, which would have cost taxpayers up to $430 billion, and the second $475 billion cancellation push is still working its way through the federal appeals circuit while under injunction.

“The Biden-Harris administration is not ‘forgiving’ debt—they are taking it from those who willingly took it out and transferring it onto those who didn’t go to college or already paid off loans,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who serves as ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement earlier this month.

“This scheme is an abuse of power and a shameless bid to buy votes on the eve of an election at taxpayers’ expense.”