Going from ‘in debt until the day I die’ to loan forgiveness, thanks to the Biden-Harris administration

“I’m going to be in debt until the day I die,” recalls AFSCME member Kelli Gray of the $350,000 in student loans she had accumulated pursuing her career in public service.

But thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to help public service workers and other borrowers drowning in student debt, Kelli Gray, a member of AFSCME Local 2187 (District Council 47), has had her student loans forgiven.

Kelli Gray believed that going to school to advance her career in public service would lead to a better life for her and her children.

But her daughter, Monique Gray, says in a video shown at the Democratic National Convention last week in Chicago, “I knew she was drowning in student loan debt.”

At one point, Kelli Gray was making $800 a month in student loan payments, and she could not keep up with the bills that kept mounting, no matter how diligently she paid them. It was thanks to her daughter that Kelli Gray decided to apply for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, revamped by the Biden-Harris administration.

Kelli Gray remembers finally learning that her loans had been forgiven.

“I am sitting at my desk, opening up my mail. It says ‘Thank you, Kelli, for public service. Your loans now have been forgiven.’ I took a deep breath, and I screamed. I had to pinch myself,” she says.

Kelli Gray is one of the millions of borrowers who have seen their loans forgiven or reduced under the Biden-Harris administration’s revamped PSLF program and other student loan forgiveness programs.

To learn more about AFSCME student debt relief resources, click here.