“I will be in debt until I die,” says AFSCME member Kelli Gray, recalling the $350,000 in student loans she amassed for her career in public service.

But thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to help public sector workers and other borrowers drowning in student debt, Kelli Gray, a member of AFSCME Local 2187 (District Council 47), had her student loans forgiven.

Kelli Gray was convinced that attending school to further her career in public service would lead to a better life for her and her children.

But her daughter Monique Gray says in a video shown at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week: “I knew she was drowning in student loan debt.”

At one point, Kelli Gray was paying back $800 a month in student loans and could no longer afford the mounting bills, no matter how diligently she paid them. Thanks to her daughter, Kelli Gray decided to apply for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program revamped by the Biden-Harris administration.

Kelli Gray remembers finally learning that her loans had been forgiven.

“I sit at my desk and open my mail. It says, ‘Thank you, Kelli, for your public service. Your loans are now forgiven.’ I took a deep breath and screamed. I had to pinch myself,” she says.

Kelli Gray is one of millions of borrowers whose loans have been forgiven or reduced under the Biden-Harris administration’s revamped PSLF program and other student loan forgiveness programs.

Click here to learn more about AFSCME’s student debt relief resources.