In a stinging defeat for the Biden administration, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that the HEROES Act did not give it the authority to unilaterally forgive federally subsidized student loans.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority, saying, “The Secretary asserts that the HEROES Act grants him the authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan principal. It does not. 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.”
The first case was decided unanimously, with all Justices ruling in Department of Education v. Brown that the two petitioners who were denied debt relief under the program did not have standing to sue the Department of Education. The second case, Biden v. Nebraska, upheld the right of the several GOP states involved in the lawsuit to sue the Biden administration,…