President Biden’s latest iteration of his student-loan “forgiveness” plan has been temporarily blocked, as two federal judges sided with multiple Republican states in ruling that only Congress holds the authority to erase student debt.
Both preliminary injunctions were filed Monday, prohibiting the Biden administration from canceling student loans under the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment program. It was set to take effect July 1. The pair of orders are a victory for Kansas and Missouri, both of which led multistate lawsuits against implementation of the SAVE plan this spring.
SAVE would have canceled at least $156 billion in student-loan debt, transferring it to taxpayers, according to Kansas’s lawsuit. Missouri’s lawsuit estimated that the “forgiveness” plan would have cost American taxpayers $475 billion over the next decade.
Attorney General Kris Kobach of Kansas led his multistate coalition in suing Biden, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, and the Department of Education for attempting to bypass Congress and approve the cancellation of student debt for a second time. The SAVE program was created after the Supreme Court last June struck down a similar “forgiveness” plan, one that would have transferred to taxpayers up to $430 billion in student debt.
Kobach’s lawsuit argued that the Department of Education doesn’t have the authority to cancel billions in student debt. It also contended that the SAVE program is violating the Supereme Court’s ruling and that Congress is the only government body that can authorize student-loan “forgiveness,” since it would require the spending of taxpayer money.
Kansas and Missouri were two of the six states that successfully challenged the Biden administration’s Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act last year. In Biden v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that Cardona does not have authority under the HEROES Act to cancel roughly $430 billion in student debt. The Court held that this move would have affected nearly all borrowers.
“Kansas’s victory today is a victory for the entire country,” Kobach said in a statement. “As the court correctly held, whether to forgive billions of dollars of student debt is a major question that only Congress can answer. Biden’s administration is attempting to usurp Congress’s authority. This is not only unconstitutional, it’s unfair. Blue-collar Kansas workers who didn’t go to college shouldn’t have to pay off the student loans of New Yorkers with gender studies degrees.”
Attorney General Andrew Bailey of Missouri likewise praised the injunction order related to his lawsuit, calling it a “huge win for the Constitution.”
With both lawsuits, more than a dozen states have sued Biden, the Department of Education, and its leader over this student-debt issue. Kansas was joined by Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah in its litigation. In Missouri’s lawsuit, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio, and Oklahoma were listed as additional plaintiffs.
So far, since Biden took office, 4.75 million borrowers have had $167 billion in student debt canceled, with the bill transferred to taxpayers.