Rather than action to “reinvent” the concept at the whim of the Executive branch, the existing program for public sector workers should have been made permanent and advertised as an option to invite and encourage more participants.
All of the pearl-clutching that vital, essential jobs like teachers, healthcare professionals, social workers, etc are unable to escape “forever debt” from student loans was a myth. Any of those people willing to dedicate 10 years to public sector or non-profit employment while keeping up 120 payments (even income contingent reduced payments) had the choice to have the remainder of their loans “forgiven”.
In addition.....even borrowers with incomplete or unrelated degrees could have their debt “forgiven”. Instead of working at Starbuck’s and whining about “forever debt”, an Art Studies major could have debt forgiven after working in a school cafeteria or food bank for 10 years.
I am very familiar with the details of that existing Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program - that was passed by Congress during the GW Bush administration.
It was a good premise, but flaws in the intent/interpretation of eligibility requirements were not discovered until the 10 year mark (2017) when the earliest borrowers qualified to have their remaining debt ‘forgiven’.....and found that many banks and loan servicers had not counted their 120+ payments as "eligible".
Congress and Trump acted to introduce the Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness (TEPSLF), which clarified and corrected much of the program’s failings. It took a few years for the corrected data to be processed.....but by 2021, most of the erroneously rejected borrowers were in the clear. Their remaining debt was erased, and any overage beyond 120 payments that they'd paid during the 2017-2021 "correction" interval was refunded (I was one of those people).
Instead of continuing the program in its amended format....the “temporary” correction was allowed to expire and Biden went full force on his plan to “forgive everyone” without Congressional action.