WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is moving forward with an overhaul of several student debt forgiveness programs, aiming to make it easier for borrowers to get relief if they are duped by their colleges or if they put in a decade of work as public servants.

The Education Department on Monday finalized a package of rules that it proposed earlier this year. The new rules take hold in July and are separate from President Joe Biden’s sweeping student debt forgiveness plan, which has been held up in court amid a legal challenge from Republican-led states.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called it a “monumental step” that will make it faster and simpler to get debt relief. “The Biden administration is fixing a broken system and putting borrowers first,” he said.

Chief among the changes is a revamp of a program known as borrower defense, which offers debt forgiveness to students whose colleges make false advertising claims or otherwise commit fraud.

The new policy clarifies that the Education Department can review claims from individual borrowers or it can grant forgiveness to huge swaths of students from the same college if it has been found to have committed fraud. The department can pursue such “group discharge” claims on its own or in response to requests from states or nonprofit legal groups.

It’s a reversal from Trump-era policies that eliminated group discharges and made it harder for individuals to qualify for relief.

The new rule cements the department’s ability to erase debt for thousands of borrowers in a single action, as the Biden administration has done for those who attended ITT Tech, Corinthian Colleges and other for-profit college chains.

The overhaul also brings changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which was created by Congress as an incentive for government and nonprofit workers.

Under the new rule, teachers, nurses and other public workers can get the rest of their federal student debt erased after 120 monthly payments. The change erases a 15-day late rule, allowing payments to count even if they are late or in multiple installments.