Supporters of student debt forgiveness demonstrate outside the US Supreme Court on June 30, 2023, in Washington, DC.
Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Friday struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, denying tens of millions of Americans the chance to get up to $20,000 of their debt erased.
The ruling, which matched expert predictions given the justices’ conservative majority, is a massive blow to borrowers who were promised loan forgiveness by the Biden administration last summer.
The 6-3 majority ruled that at least one of the six states that challenged the loan relief program had the proper legal footing, known as standing, to do so.
The high court said the president didn’t have the authority to cancel such a large amount of consumer debt without authorization from Congress and agreed the program would cause harm to the plaintiffs.
Financial experts also expressed concern about what could come next for borrowers.
The U.S. Department of Education recently warned that pushing people into repayment after an over three-year-long pause and a pandemic that disrupted the financial security of many households without Biden’s loan cancellation could trigger a historic rise in delinquencies and defaults.
Consumer advocates slammed the ruling, and accused the court of bias.
“Today’s decision is an absolute betrayal to 40 million student loan borrowers counting on an impartial court to decide their financial future based upon the established rule of law,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director at the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group.
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Yet the decision is a major win for the plaintiffs who’d worked to block the forgiveness and were worried about the executive branch interfering in the lending sector. At an estimated cost of $400 billion, Biden’s policy would have been among the most expensive executive actions in U.S. history.
The justices heard oral arguments at the end of February.
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