Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan

Editor’s note: This story is developing and will be updated.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Joe Biden’s signature policy initiative to wipe away mass amounts of student loan debt for millions of borrowers. 

In a 6-3 decision, the high court declared his proposal unlawful, invalidating plans to cancel up to $20,000 in loan debt for individuals earning $125,000 or less a year. 

The Biden administration tried to use the 2003 Heroes Act, which was originally set up to assist military members, to justify the debt forgiveness. That law expressly exempts the education secretary from having to seek public comment for major policy action in times of emergency. Bypassing public comment is typical with major executive branch policy moves.

However, the conservative wing of the court interpreted that the Heroes Act does not authorize the loan forgiveness program.

“The authority to ‘modify’ statutes and regulations allows the Secretary to make modest adjustments and additions to existing provisions, not transform them,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion for the majority. “Prior to the COVID–19 pandemic, ‘modifications’ issued under the Act were minor and had limited effect. But the ‘modifications’ challenged here create a novel and fundamentally different loan forgiveness program.”

The Supreme Court was considering two lawsuits — it ruled in favor of one brought by six red states that alleged the plan would harm their finances.

The other was from two student loan borrowers who claimed they couldn’t take full advantage of the plan. Those borrowers, Myra Brown and Alexander Taylor, also alleged the U.S. education secretary disregarded legally required regulatory procedures in developing the debt forgiveness program. 

Brown would not have qualified for debt forgiveness under the plan, while Taylor would have been ineligible for the highest amount of loan forgiveness, $20,000. They both allege the administration didn’t allow them the opportunity to weigh in on the debt relief program. 

The high court unanimously ruled the borrowers did not have standing to sue.