President Joe Biden announces a new federal student loan forgiveness program on April 8, 2024, at Madison Area Technical College’s Truax Campus in Madison, Wisconsin.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
President Joe Biden Another attempt to forgive student debt could come as soon as next month, a sweeping redo effort that could impact tens of millions of americans.
The Biden administration may try to provide aid in about 14 months. Supreme Court blocks implementation of first student loan forgiveness plan. Just hours after the judge announced his ruling in June 2023, Biden vowed to find a new way to reduce or eliminate people’s education debt.
Although Republican-led legal challenges have so far blocked the president from enacting massive student loan forgiveness, his administration has still managed to cancel more debt than any administration before it.
The Biden administration is largely trying to fix long-troubled loan forgiveness. officially recognized Provided nearly $169 billion in loan forgiveness to approximately 4.8 million people.
Its new plan is expected to benefit at least 25 million people.
Relief could come as soon as next month
4 groups of borrowers expected to qualify
Hoping the aid program can withstand the inevitable next round of legal challenges, the Department of Education revised its forgiveness plan to make it more targeted than the first plan.
The department listed four categories of eligibility in an email to borrowers. These are:
- A borrower owes more than he or she owes when payments begin.
- Those who repaid undergraduate loans on or before July 1, 2005, or, if they had graduate student loans, on or before July 1, 2000.
- People who are already eligible for student loan forgiveness under one of the government’s existing programs but have not yet applied.
- Students from “low economic value” programs.
Republicans may try again to block bailout plan
To critics of broad student loan forgiveness, Biden’s new plan looks a lot like his first.
After Biden touted his revised relief plan, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican write on X The president “is trying to unabashedly overstep the Constitution.”
“See you in court,” Bailey wrote.
Missouri is one of six Republican-led states, including Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Carolina. litigation Oppose Biden’s first sweeping debt relief effort.
Red states believe the president overstepped his authority and that canceling the debt would hurt lenders’ bottom lines. Six conservative Supreme Court justices agreed with them.
Kantrowitz said more legal challenges will be inevitable once the Biden administration unveils its new student loan relief plan in October.
“Shortly after the final rule is issued, there will be litigation seeking to block the final rule,” he said.
A recent Supreme Court ruling may also make it harder for Biden’s revised plan to withstand these onslaughts.
In late June, the high court struck down the so-called “Chevron Doctrine,” a 40-year-old precedent requiring judges to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of controversial laws. this 6-3 RulingConservative-majority court divided along ideological lines expected to undermine federal power supervisory power.
