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- The Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday over President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
- The Biden administration launched the plan last August and was quickly sued over it.
- The plan is currently blocked, and the justices will likely rule on it in June.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments regarding two challenges to President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
Biden’s plan, which would cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for individuals earning under $125,000 a year, was announced last summer and incurred immediate backlash from his Republican opponents. Both cases the Supreme Court heard on Tuesday are seeking to permanently block his policy from taking effect.
Here’s how the legal challenges to Biden’s student debt cancellation plan unfolded:
Biden enacted his long-promised student loan forgiveness plan last August
Biden touted the issue of student loan forgiveness throughout his 2020 election campaign and spent much of his first year and a half in office floating various proposals and extending the federal pause on student loan payments that dates back to the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But it wasn’t until August of 2022 that Biden announced he would use the HEROES Act of 2003 to enact his long-promised student loan forgiveness plan. The HEROES Act was originally intended to allow the federal government to help alleviate the burden of student loan payments for those suffering economic hardship due to a national emergency like 9/11.
Biden’s use of the HEROES Act to enact a vast student loan forgiveness plan caused immediate controversy.
Challengers to Biden’s plan argue that the plan is an example of executive overreach and an abuse of the HEROES Act, insisting such a plan requires congressional approval. Biden’s supporters disagree, arguing that the HEROES Act justifies the plan and that the COVID-19 pandemic justifies student-debt relief.
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Immediately, lawsuits seeking to block Biden’s plan began taking shape
Barely one month after Biden announced his student loan forgiveness plan, the lawsuits began.
Six GOP-led states, including Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina, jointly sued the Biden administration, alleging the plan would damage their tax revenues, harm loan companies, and exceed Biden’s authority as president. The states argue that such a plan cannot be accomplished by executive authority, and must go through Congress.
Two plaintiffs backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative nonprofit, also sued the Biden administration. The plaintiffs said they were excluded from some of the relief provided in Biden’s plan, and alleged that the Biden administration deprived them of their procedural rights by failing to adequately consult the public on the plan before implementing it.
Millions began applying for student-debt relief
Borrowers began applying for student-debt relief online on October 14. Within just a few weeks, the Biden administration announced that over 26 million borrowers had applied and that the Education Department had approved 16 million of them.
Multiple federal judges blocked Biden’s plan from taking effect, and the Supreme Court announced it would hear oral arguments on the 2 cases
On October 21, a US appeals court blocked Biden’s program, preventing the Biden Administration from implementing any debt relief to applicants. The court permitted borrowers to continue applying for relief.
On November 10, a federal judge in Texas blocked Biden’s program more fully, preventing the Biden Administration from accepting new applications from borrowers.
In December, the Supreme Court announced it would hear oral arguments on both major challengers to Biden’s plan: Biden v. Nebraska, and Department of Education v. Brown.
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The Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of Biden’s plan during oral arguments
The Supreme Court justices discussed arguments at length on Tuesday, with many of the court’s conservative justices questioning whether the student loan forgiveness program was an executive overreach, as Insider’s Ayelet Sheffey and Oma Seddiq reported.
Chief Justice John Roberts repeatedly questioned the program’s costs and the role of Congress in making such a decision. Justice Neil Gorsuch also questioned whether Biden’s plan was fair to those who have either paid off all their student loans or who never took out student loans to begin with.
The attorney representing the Biden administration, Solicitor General Elizabeth Pregolar, argued that the Biden administration acted within its power when it implemented the student-debt relief plan to assist the millions of individuals financially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Supreme Court will likely issue a ruling on student loan forgiveness by the end of June
Though it’s always difficult to predict exactly when the Supreme Court will release a decision, the justices will rule on student loan debt relief at some point before the end of the court’s session, typically the last week of June.
This content was originally published here.
