Biden says student borrowers with smaller loans could get debt forgiveness in February. Here's who qualifies.

Some student borrowers could see their debt completely forgiven next month.

Starting in February, people who took out less than $12,000 in loans and have been in repayment for 10 years will get their remaining loan balance "canceled immediately," President Joe Biden said in a Friday statement. The borrowers also must be enrolled in the Biden administration's new Saving on a Valuable Education repayment plan, also called the SAVE plan.

Friday's announcement is part of a push from the Biden administration to provide debt relief after the Supreme Court last year blocked its broad-based student loan forgiveness plan, which would have erased $20,000 in loans for about 40 million borrowers. Since then, the Education Department has been focusing on other paths to reduce the financial strain of student loans, such as the SAVE plan, which links repayments to income and, in some cases, can lower monthly payments to $0.