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The Supreme Court on Friday struck down the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the Republican appointees that the law at issue didn’t authorize the plan.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent for the three Democratic appointees, arguing that, “In every respect, the Court today exceeds its proper, limited role in our Nation’s governance.”
Apparently anticipating this outcome, the White House on Friday signaled “new actions” coming to protect student loan borrowers.
Billions of dollars in loan relief were at stake for millions of borrowers. The plan applied to people whose annual income was less than $125,000 ($250,000 for households) in either 2020 or 2021, providing up to $10,000 for most borrowers and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients with greater financial need.
During oral arguments in February, the Republican appointees were skeptical of the government’s power to forgive that much debt. The court’s Democratic appointees were skeptical that the challengers — Republican-led states and individual borrowers — even had legal standing to challenge debt relief in the first place. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at the time noted that the court would break new ground by finding standing here.
(In a related case on Friday, the court unanimously rejected the challenge to the program on the grounds that the challengers didn’t have legal standing to bring the claim, but the plan is struck down by the decision Roberts authored.)
The law at issue is the 2003 HEROES Act. It lets the secretary of education “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision” to protect borrowers affected by national emergencies, among other things. The Biden administration pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic as the emergency allowing debt forgiveness.
The administration wrote to the justices ahead of the argument that “the acute public-health emergency caused by COVID-19 is abating” but “the HEROES Act and the Secretary’s plan are not aimed at stopping the spread of disease; they are concerned with economic consequences.”
Read the full text of the opinion striking down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan below.
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.
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