Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student loan relief

The Supreme Court voted to strike down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan on Friday, putting an end to a plan that could have wiped over $400 billion in student loan debt for some 42 million Americans.

In a 6 to 3 dissenting vote, the opinion of the conservative justices prevailed, declaring Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in debt for some borrowers unconstitutional.

The Court’s liberal Justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented, but that was not enough to overturn the decision.

The nine-member court first heard oral arguments for two student-loan related cases in late February as they assessed whether provisions in the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act gave Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona the statutory authority to forgive loan debt.

according to a report by Time Magazine, “The Secretary asserts that the HEROES Act grants him the authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan principal. It does not,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority opinion. “We hold today that the Act allows the Secretary to ‘waive or modify’ existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, not to rewrite that statute from the ground up.”

More than 16 million borrowers were approved for loan relief before it was put on pause by the two federal court rulings, and another 26 million people had applied.

Now, borrowers can expect their student loan interest to resume on Sept. 1. Payments will start to be due in October, as the debt ceiling deal signed on June 3 prevents the Biden Administration from extending the student loan debt moratorium without Congressional approval.