

"I'm very pleased that the Supreme Court is following the Constitution," says Rep. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the debt relief plan would cost about $400 billion over the next 30 years. Many Republicans had fiercely opposed Biden's plan, calling it an abuse of executive power and an enormously expensive handout to college-educated Americans.

"Let us be clear," Johnson warned, "absent further, swift action in the wake of an unfavorable ruling from the Court, Black voters stand to be incredibly disillusioned by an Administration who failed to deliver on key campaign promises but succeeded in widening the racial wealth gap."Įducation Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan will cost $400 billion, budget office says In the lead-up to the court's decision, Johnson sent a letter to Biden, advising him, in the case of an unfavorable ruling, to "pursue all legal pathways" to erase student loan debts.

"I see it as an unfortunate reality that in a country where we bail out Fortune 100 companies, where we bail out banks that have not been good actors, that this Supreme Court would allow that to happen, and yet," says Derrick Johnson, the NAACP's president and CEO, the court would choose to leave millions of borrowers "stuck in a vicious cycle of debt." The Student Borrower Protection Center is one of a handful of advocacy groups that have been vocal in their support of debt relief, and have put pressure on President Biden to be as generous as possible. "It's really tragic that student loan borrowers have been stuck in this position as political pawns," says Persis Yu of the Student Borrower Protection Center, "and now are victims to a politicized court that is willing to jeopardize their financial security for political gain." You know, I'm not eating a goose for dinner every night." "I haven't been having crazy parties for the last three years because I'm not paying back my student loans. "There is this mental weight that you carry with a student loan, knowing that as far as you can go into your foreseeable future," says Panton, who became a father late last year and says the money he's saved not paying down his loans over the pause has helped support his young family.

Nearly half of those borrowers, roughly 20 million, could have had their student loans erased completely. Millions of borrowers are feeling collective disappointmentīiden's plan would have provided relief to most federal student loan borrowers – as many as 43 million people. While much can be said about the court's decision – and no doubt will be in the coming days – here are five things to know about what it will and won't mean for borrowers and the country. But the proposal was also beset by a host of Republican legal challenges that ultimately led to the Supreme Court stepping in. That August announcement came after months of speculation that the president would act, and its warm reception by younger voters may have contributed to Democrats' better-than-expected showing in the midterm elections. government would cancel up to $20,000 of debt for anyone who had received a Pell Grant to attend college, and up to $10,000 for the vast majority of remaining borrowers. The high court's decision comes after a tumultuous year for federal student loan borrowers, who were told in August by President Biden that the U.S. The "modifications" by the Department of Education, Roberts wrote, "created a novel and fundamentally different loan forgiveness program" that "expanded forgiveness to nearly every borrower in the country." In a decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court ruled in favor of Missouri and five other states, who had argued that the Administration had overstepped its authority to forgive some student loans. "The HEROES Act allows the Secretary to 'waive or modify' existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act," the ruling states, "but does not allow the Secretary to rewrite that statute to the extent of canceling $430 billion of student loan principal." In a 6-3 decision, the high court ruled that the Biden Administration did not have authority under a 2003 federal law to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt. Supreme Court has struck down President Biden's sweeping plan to discharge some or all federal student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans. In one of the most anticipated decisions of its current term, the U.S.
