Biden administration believes student loan forgiveness plan will survive

US President Joe Biden speaks about student loan debt relief at Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin, April 8, 2024. 

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

The aid package is narrower

There’s a different legal justification

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.

Biden administration is using rulemaking process

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