EXPLAINER: What's behind changes in student loan forgiveness

A student debt forgiveness program with notoriously complex eligibility rules is getting an overhaul from the Biden administration, with the intent of extending debt relief to thousands of public workers.

The Education Department announced Wednesday that it will lift some rules for Public Service Loan Forgiveness while it works on permanent improvements through a rulemaking process. The action will immediately make 22,000 workers eligible for loan cancellation estimated at $1.7 billion, and it will push more than 500,000 closer to debt relief.

Here are some questions and answers about the program and its overhaul:

WHAT IS PSLF?

Public Service Loan Forgiveness, known as PSLF, is a program created by Congress in 2007 to encourage more college graduates to pursue careers in public service. It promised that if employees of governments or nonprofit groups made 10 years of monthly payments on their federal student loans, the remainder would be canceled.

It’s open to a variety of workers at any level of government or any nonprofit, from teachers and postal workers to police officers and members of the military.

But there are additional eligibility rules that weren’t always made obvious to borrowers.

WHO'S ELIGIBLE AND WHO ISN'T?

Under the original rules, borrowers with certain types of loans were ineligible, including those from a now-defunct program that issued federally backed student loans through banks. Those loans, known as Federal Family Education Loans, were the most common kind when the program was created, and more than 10 million Americans are still paying them off.

Some repayment plans offered by the federal government were also ineligible, and any payments made while billing was paused through forbearance or deferment did not count toward the required 120...