The Supreme Court has thrown out president Biden’s student loan relief plan in a 6-3 decision. In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts held that Missouri and other states do have standing to challenge student loan program. Biden’s plan would have wiped away $400 billion in student loan debt. “The Secretary asserts that the HEROES Act grants him the authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan principal. It does not,” Justice Roberts wrote.
Biden had proposed a strategy to absolve Pell Grant beneficiaries of a maximum of $20,000 in loans, and $10,000 for other loan recipients, given that the individual earns less than $125,000 annually. For couples who are married, this income boundary was set at twice the amount.
There was a growing expectation that the judiciary’s conservative faction would reject this strategy. During the February verbal hearings, a number of justices voiced skepticism regarding the Department of Education’s capacity to independently eliminate student debt amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.
This is a developing story.
