NBC NEWS
The Supreme Court on Friday invalidated President Joe Biden’s student loan debt relief plan, meaning the long-delayed proposal intended to implement a campaign trail promise will not go into effect.
The justices, divided 6-3 on ideological lines, ruled in one of two cases that the program was an unlawful exercise of presidential power because it had not been explicitly approved by Congress.
Biden said the ruling was disappointing but vowed to take additional steps to relieve the financial burden on those holding student loan debt.
“I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families,” he said. “My administration will continue to work to bring the promise of higher education to every American.”
The court rejected the Biden administration’s arguments that the plan was lawful under a 2003 law called the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, or HEROES Act. The law says the government can provide relief to recipients of student loans when there is a “national emergency,” allowing it to act to ensure people are not in “a worse position financially” as a result of the emergency.
Chief Justice John Roberts said the HEROES Act language was not specific enough, writing that the court’s precedent “requires that Congress speak clearly before a department secretary can unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy.”
The plan, which would have allowed eligible borrowers to cancel up to $20,000 in debt and would have cost more than $400 billion, has been blocked since the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary hold in October.
About 43 million Americans would have been eligible to participate.
The student loan proposal was important politically to Biden, as tackling student loan debt was a key pledge he made on the campaign trail in 2020 to energize younger voters.
The ruling immediately puts pressure on the administration to find an alternative avenue to forgive student debt that could potentially withstand legal challenge.
Advocates, as well as some Democrats in Congress, say the Education Department has broad power to forgive student loan debt under the 1965 Higher Education Act, a different law than the one at issue in the Supreme Court cases.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the ruling was “disappointing and cruel” and noted that the Biden administration has “remaining legal routes to provide broad-based student debt cancellation.”
Republicans welcomed the ruling, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky saying Biden’s “student loan socialism plan would be a raw deal for hardworking taxpayers.”
Separately, the student loan repayment process is set to begin again at the end of August after having been put on pause during the Covid-19 pandemic, although first payments will not be due until October…
