Here’s why Biden administration believes new student loan forgiveness plan will survive legal challenges

Biden‘s 2020
campaign
promise
to
erase
student
debt was
thwarted
at
the
Supreme
Court
in
June.

The
majority-conservative
court
ruled
that
Biden
didn’t
have
the
authority
to
erase
$400
billion
in
student
debt
without
prior
authorization
from
Congress.
Biden
had
tried
to
forgive
the
debt
of
nearly
all
40
million
federal
student
loan
borrowers,
with
many
people
getting
up
to
$20,000
in
cancellation.

This
time,
the
Biden
administration
has
narrowed
its
aid
by
targeting
specific
groups
of
borrowers,
including
those
who’ve
been
in
repayment
for
decades
or
attended
schools
of
low-financial
value.
It
hopes
this
will
help
the
plan
survive
in
front
of
a
court
that
is
skeptical
of
broad
loan
cancellation,
experts
say.

More
than
25
million
borrowers
still
stand
to
benefit
from
the
program.

As
a
result,
for
critics
of
broad
student
loan
forgiveness,
Biden’s
new
plan
looks
a
great
deal
like
his
first.

After
the
president
touted
his
revised
relief
program
on
April
8,
Missouri
Attorney
General
Andrew
Bailey,
a
Republican, wrote
on
X that
Biden “is
trying
to
unabashedly
eclipse
the
Constitution.”

“See
you
in
court,”
Bailey
wrote.

In
addition
to
the
fact
that
this
effort
is
a
more
targeted
aid
program,
the
U.S.
Department
of
Education
is
also
using
a
different
law
—
the
Higher
Education
Act
—
as
its
legal
justification.
Biden’s
first
forgiveness
plan
was
based
on
the
Higher
Education
Relief
Opportunities
for
Students
Act,
or
HEROES
Act,
of
2003.

The
HEROES
Act
was
passed
in
the
aftermath
of
the
9/11
terrorist
attacks
and
grants
the
president
broad
power
to
revise
student
loan
programs
during
national
emergencies.
The
Biden
administration
initially
tried
to
use
this
law
because,
at
the
time,
the
country
was
under
national
emergency
status
from
the
Covid-19
pandemic.

However,
the
conservative
justices
didn’t
buy
that
argument.

Chief
Justice
John
Roberts
wrote
in
the
majority
opinion
for Biden
v.
Nebraska: “But
imagine
instead
asking
the
enacting
Congress
a
more
pertinent
question: ‘Can
the
Secretary
use
his
powers
to
abolish
$430
billion
in
student
loans,
completely
canceling
loan
balances
for
20
million
borrowers,
as
a
pandemic
winds
down
to
its
end?'”

“We
can’t
believe
the
answer
would
be
yes.”

The
HEA,
which
the
Biden
administration
is
now
using,
was signed
into
law
by
President
Lyndon
B.
Johnson in
1965
and
allows
the Education
secretary some
authority
to
waive
or
release
borrowers’
education
debt.

When
Sen.
Elizabeth
Warren,
D-Mass.,
was
running
for
president
in
2020,
she
pointed
to
the

HEA
as
a
law
that
would
allow
her
to
deliver
sweeping
loan
relief.

“This
authority
provides
a
safety
valve
for
federal
student
loan
programs,
letting
the
Department
of
Education
use
its
discretion
to
wipe
away
loans
even
when
they
do
not
meet
the
eligibility
criteria
for
more
specific
cancellation
programs,”
Warren
wrote
in
her

student
loan
forgiveness
proposal
back
then.