It’s been over a year since the Supreme Court blocked a massive student loan forgiveness initiative from the Biden administration—one of the president’s most appealing campaign promises. But that hasn’t stopped the White House from trying to implement similar programs.
Now, a group of Republican-led states have filed a lawsuit to block Joe Biden’s policy plan to both reduce and completely forgive the loans of millions of student borrowers. The seven states—led by Missouri—who have joined the lawsuit include Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota, and Ohio.
The complaint argues that there is an “unlawful” attempt to “mass cancel hundreds of billions” of borrowed dollars prior to finalizing the proposal. This illegal effort, the lawsuit claims, is spearheaded by the Department of Education. It further alleges that the Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, is conducting a hidden agenda “through cloak and dagger” to forgive debt after courts have already prevented him from doing so.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a statement that the lawsuit is the latest effort to challenge the White House’s “third and weakest attempt” to initiate mass student loan forgiveness. He also suggested that the Biden administration is trying to accomplish this “in the dark of night” and without properly informing citizens or Congress.
Bailey further noted that the GOP has “successfully halted” to earlier attempts to cancel student loans, and he expressed “no doubt” that the third legal challenge will produce yet another victory. The updated proposal has not been finalized but is expected to be completed in the fall.
Although no student loans are allowed to be cancelled prior to the rule’s finalization, the GOP-led lawsuit alleges that the White House is illegally pursuing a work-around that could start unauthorized loan forgiveness “this week.” The lawsuit argues that this scheme is “extraordinarily inequitable” and goes against a statute which does not allow the Secretary of Education to enact similar rules “sooner than 60 days after publication.”
The lawsuit comes more than a year after the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn the Biden administration’s plan to forgive up to $400 billion of student loan debt. The White House had boasted the failed effort as a financial help to 43 million citizens as nearly half of student loan borrowers would have seen all their student loan debt wiped away.