Activists and top Democrats urge the Biden administration to increase student loan forgiveness before the end of the term.

The Biden administration should disregard the federal injunction and continue to eliminate student loan debt before the president departs office, according to top Democratic lawmakers and activists.

On Wednesday, Senators Dick Durbin and Ed Markey, both Democrats, held a press conference with activist groups in Washington, D.C., urging the Department of Education to fulfill its promise to provide federal student loan forgiveness to borrowers who attended either defunct or predatory for-profit colleges.

Durbin urged the Biden administration to save the students as soon as possible in their final weeks of power.

In 2022 and 2023, President Biden's Education Department declared that it would grant student loan forgiveness to 768,000 borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges Inc. and ITT Technical Institute. While most of these students had their loans fully forgiven, at least 145,000 former Corinthian students who were approved to have their loans forgiven still have not received the promised relief, according to the Project on Predatory Student Lending (PPSL).

"PPSL stated in a Forbes article last week that the upcoming weeks are crucial and their focus is on two things: ensuring relief is provided to those who were promised it, and issuing more group discharges for individuals who attended predatory schools. Meanwhile, the group's senior director of policy and advocacy told the Washington Post that they want to ensure the Biden administration completes the work they started."

On Wednesday, Durbin and Markey will be joined by groups like PPSL to continue urging the Biden administration to maximize student debt relief, even though the program, known as the "borrower defense loan discharge program," remains tied up in litigation after a federal court issued an injunction last year.

The federal government's student aid office states that the injunction remains in effect until a final judgment in the case is reached.

The agency asserts that the Department will not process any borrower defense applications under the rule that is subject to the injunction until the injunction is lifted.

The agency still encouraged borrowers to apply for "borrower defense relief" and stated that they would continue to adjudicate such applications while the case progresses through the courts.

When contacted for comment, the Department of Education did not offer any on-the-record remarks before the deadline for publication.

Planet Chronicle Digital did not receive responses from Durbin, Markey, and PPSL for this story.