Approximately 9 million Americans who applied for President Joe Biden's student loan cancellation program were mistakenly sent approval letters last month.
The erroneous letters were included in a batch of updates the Department of Education sent out in November to inform 16 million applicants they had been approved for up to $20,000 in student debt forgiveness.
Officials told CBS News that an additional 9 million people received emails indicating they had been approved when they had not been because the process was paused due to legal challenges. Others, who had not yet applied to the program, also received the false approval email.
According to CBS, the error was made by DOE contractor Accenture Federal Services, which sent out the emails on Nov. 22 and 23. The mistake will likely only add to confusion surrounding the student debt-relief program, which is caught in limbo as the Supreme Court agreed to hear one of the many legal challenges earlier this month.
"Communicating clearly and accurately with borrowers is a top priority of the Department," a spokesperson for the Education Department said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch. "We are in close touch with Accenture Federal Services as they take corrective action to ensure all borrowers and those affected have accurate information about debt relief."
The subject line of the email to the 9 million recipients reportedly read, "Your Student Loan Debt Relief Plan Has Been Approved." The text of the letter was accurate, however, in informing those recipients that the determination of their eligibility would resume "if and when we prevail in court."
Corrected emails will be issued within the next few days, according to CBS.
Accenture blamed the issue on "human error," in a statement to MoneyWatch.
"Accenture Federal Services regrets the human error that led to an email being sent to a number of student loan debt relief applicants with an inaccurate subject line," the company said. "Working closely with the Department, Accenture Federal Services will review quality control measures to support accurate and timely communications to applicants in the Student Loan Debt Relief program."
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