President Joe Biden (D) has decided to forgive all $5.8 billion of the loans outstanding still held by the folks who went to any of the Corinthian Colleges institutions.

[T]he remaining 560,000 borrowers will be eligible for automatic discharges of their remaining Corinthian federal student-loan debt. All remaining federal loans held by anyone who attended a Corinthian school between its founding in 1995 and its 2015 closure are eligible.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona:

As of today, every student deceived, defrauded, and driven into debt by Corinthian Colleges can rest assured that the Biden-Harris administration has their back and will discharge their federal student loans[.]

Either the Corinthian students were cheated, or they were not; I have questions. Notice that I’m eliding the question, here, of why us average American taxpayers should be on the hook for the misbehaving Corinthian Colleges’ pecadilloes.

Why does only some of the debt—the unpaid balances—get canceled? Why don’t the amounts already paid by those students with remaining debt balances also get returned?

Why aren’t the Corinthian students who paid off their debt—and there are quite a number—eligible for recompense?

Is Biden actually saying, with a straight face, that the students were cheated only to the extent they still owe money?

Help me understand the logic of this.