WASHINGTON - US President Joe Biden has approved US$6.1 billion in student debt cancellation for 317,000 borrowers who attended the Art Institutes between 1 January 2004 and 16 October 2017. The for-profit chain of colleges closed last year following fraud allegations, writes Alia Shoaib for Newsweek.

In an announcement made on Wednesday 1 May, Biden said this institution “falsified data, knowingly misled students and cheated borrowers into taking on mountains of debt without leading to promising career prospects at the end of their studies”.

Student debt cancellation has become a key feature of Biden’s administration, and Wednesday’s announcement comes after a deadline for students to submit a loan consolidation application. This is one of the Education Department’s largest group discharges of federal student loans.