A federal appeals court blocked the remainder of President Joe Biden’s student loan cancellation plan.
State attorneys, led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Baily, asked the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to block the remaining portions of the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan. Last month, a U.S. District Court prevented the Education Department from moving forward with the forgiveness plan.
“The Court granted our emergency motion to BLOCK Joe Biden’s entire illegal student loan plan, which would have saddled working Americans with half-a-trillion dollars in Ivy League debt,” Bailey wrote on X. “HUGE win for every American who still believes in paying their own way.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona released a statement on the ruling, declaring it “could have devastating consequences for millions of student loan borrowers crushed by unaffordable monthly payments if it remains in effect.”
“It’s shameful that politically motivated lawsuits waged by Republican elected officials are once again standing in the way of lower payments for millions of borrowers,” he said, adding, “Borrowers enrolled in the SAVE Plan will be placed in an interest-free forbearance while our Administration continues to vigorously defend the SAVE Plan in court. The Department will be providing regular updates to borrowers affected by these rulings in the coming days.”
The ruling came the same day the Biden administration announced a new student loan cancellation effort.
The effort, under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), cancels student debt for 35,000 borrowers, amounting to $1.2 billion.
“Each of those borrowers has received an average of over $35,000 in debt cancellation. These 35,000 borrowers approved for forgiveness today are public service workers – teachers, nurses, law enforcement officials, and first responders who have dedicated their lives to strengthening their communities, and because of the fixes we made to Public Service Loan Forgiveness, they will now have more breathing room to support themselves and their families,” Biden said in a statement.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach similarly filed a lawsuit against Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan in March alongside Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah.
At the time, Kobach told Fox News Digital, “Not since the Civil War has a president told the Supreme Court, ‘Yeah, you blocked me, but I’m gonna do it anyway.’ Biden is trying to twist federal law once again, and his new plan is just as illegal as the old plan.”
“If Congress wants to forgive that student debt … then only Congress can do it,” he said. “An unelected executive agency cannot just take that power to make these legislative decisions from Congress, and that’s one of the main arguments we will be making in court.”
