The Supreme Court ruled against President Joe Biden‘s multi-billion dollar student loan forgiveness program in June, but somehow his administration is still canceling the most student debt in history.
Since the high court nixed Biden’s plan to forgive up to $430 billion in student debt for millions in dollars, his administration has canceled more than $48 billion since the summer and $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million people since taking office, according to the Education Department.
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The administration’s success in canceling the debt is due in part to already existing student loan forgiveness programs, which are limited to specific categories of borrowers, such as accounts that have been paying for over 20 years, those who are defrauded by for-profit colleges, and public-sector workers.
Biden has also managed to offset moves made during former President Donald Trump’s administration to limit some forgiveness programs by temporarily expanding debt relief programs.
A sizable chunk of the forgiveness comes from nearly $42 billion of federal student loans carried by almost 855,000 borrowers enrolled in Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plans. The Education Department admitted in a statement on Aug. 14 that the department intended to counteract “past administrative failures.”
Trump, the Republican frontrunner for the 2024 presidential election, took credit for putting an end to Biden’s debt forgiveness plan, saying it was only possible thanks to his “nomination of three distinguished and courageous jurists to the Supreme Court,” according to a social media statement in July.
Trump previously referred to Biden’s loan relief plan as an “election-enhancing money grab.” Trump’s top rival for the GOP’s 2024 nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), has likened such forgiveness to stealing tax dollars away from workers who didn’t obtain a college degree.
On Oct. 4, the administration announced an additional $9 billion in student loan debt cancellation, including $5.2 billion for Public Service Loan Forgiveness borrowers and $2.8 billion for IDR borrowers.
Biden’s previous bid to forgive up to $20,000 in debt per borrower was swiftly met by numerous lawsuits. His new plan to wipe out $39 billion in debt owed by more than 800,000 under the IDR program is now being contested at the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a group that contends Biden greenlit the forgiveness without “legal authority.”
“The Supreme Court has declared unlawful the Administration’s $430 billion student loan program to cancel student loan debt by administrative fiat without involving Congress. Yet, the Administration is still pursuing a series of similarly unlawful loan cancellations by administrative fiat that, taken together, will cost even more than the program the Supreme Court halted,” Sheng Li, litigation counsel at NCLA, told the Washington Examiner earlier this month.
An Education Department spokesperson called NCLA’s suit in August a “desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt,” vowing to defend it in court.
The core of the government’s argument is if the department can count years where a borrower was in forbearance or deferment, meaning time periods where they aren’t making payments on their loans.
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“These unlawful giveaways to the Administration’s favored constituency are utterly illegal because only Congress can expend funds to pay for debt cancellation,” said Li of NCLA.
The Washington Examiner contacted the Education Department.
