Washington——

President Joe Biden will travel to Wisconsin to announce details of a new plan to relieve the student loan debt of millions of people, a trip that comes a week after primary voting in the Midwestern battleground and highlights the Democratic president and his Republican challenger Donald Trump’s weaknesses.

Biden is scheduled to make the announcement on Monday in Madison, the state’s liberal capital and home to the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus.

New federal rules paving the way for student debt relief are not expected to be released during the president’s speech, but Biden plans to highlight a plan the Education Department began working on last year after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his first attempt. Forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt.

Immediately after the court said Biden needed Congressional approval of his original plan, the president said the decision was a “mistake” and a “mistake” and announced that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona would use his rights under the Higher Education Act The authority to institute new procedures to waive or compromise student loan debt in certain circumstances.

The new announcement on student loan relief is an important issue for young voters and could help motivate some in Biden’s political coalition who are disappointed with his job performance. The president needs their support to defeat Trump in November.

In Wisconsin’s April 2 primary, nearly 119,000 Republicans voted for a Republican candidate other than Trump, the party’s presumptive nominee. And more than 48,000 Democratic voters chose “not directed” over Biden, more than double Biden’s narrow victory in Wisconsin in 2020.

Nearly 15% of Democrats in Dane County, home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, voted “ignorant.” That’s nearly double the statewide total of 8%.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents Madison in Congress, said the top concern among voters in five town halls over the past two weeks in more rural parts of his district has been Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. It shocked him.

“I was surprised to see the intensity of the Gaza issue coming not from student voices in Madison but from older voters in more rural parts of the district,” Pocan said.

Pocan said the number of “undirected” ballots showed concern in Wisconsin and that Biden needed to address the issue. He said he planned to discuss the matter directly with Biden on Monday.

“I just want to make sure he knows that if we have a problem, it’s probably a Wisconsin problem,” Pocan said.

Biden’s new plan would expand federal student loan forgiveness to a new targeted class of borrowers through the Higher Education Act, which administration officials believe has more legal basis than the sweeping proposal that was struck down by a 6-3 court majority last year. . .

The plan is expected to be smaller and more targeted than his original plan, which would have eliminated up to $20,000 in loans for more than 40 million borrowers.

The department lists five categories of borrowers who are eligible to have some or all of their federal loans canceled. The program focuses on helping those most in need, including many who might otherwise never be able to repay their loans.

Among those in need, unpaid interest has exceeded the size of the original loan. The proposal would reset their balances back to the original amount by eliminating up to $10,000 or $20,000 of interest, depending on their income.

Under the plan, borrowers who have paid off their student loans for decades would have any remaining debt wiped out. Loans used for undergraduate education will be canceled if the borrower repays them for at least 20 years. For other types of federal loans, the term is 25 years.

The plan would automatically cancel the loans of students enrolled in for-profit college programs deemed “low value.” If a graduate’s average federal student loan payment is too high relative to their average salary while attending college, the borrower will be eligible for loan cancellation.

Those who qualify for other types of cancellations but have not yet applied will automatically receive relief. It would apply to programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Borrower Repayment Defense, which have been around for years but required extremely difficult paperwork.

Under pressure from advocates, the department also added a category for those facing “hardships.” It will offer loan cancellations to borrowers deemed likely to default within two years. Other borrowers will be eligible for relief under a broad definition of financial hardship.

A series of hearings to develop the rule concluded in February, and a draft is currently under review. The Department of Education will need to release a formal proposal and accept public comment before it can be finalized.

The latest cancellation attempt joins other targeted initiatives, including those targeting public service workers and low-income borrowers. Through these efforts, the Biden administration says it has canceled $144 billion in student loans for nearly 4 million Americans.