Earlier this year, President Biden announced his plan to cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for qualified students. This was a monumental decision because of the millions of people across the country who suffer from over $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt. However, that may all have been too good to be true, according to a Harvard law professor.
High-Profile Arguments
The U.S. Supreme court has scheduled high-profile arguments over the President’s forgiveness plan on February 28th. Effectively, this means the millions of borrowers who are awaiting the decision of their loan forgiveness will be known soon.
Since Biden unveiled this loan forgiveness plan for Americans, there has been a multitude of political groups that have filed at least six lawsuits to try and halt the policy. These lawsuits state that it’s an overreach of executive authority and unfair in many ways. Two of these legal challenges have already been successful in the least temporarily suspending the plan from going into the next phase. However, the Biden administration has appealed those decisions.
Professors Not Optimistic
Laurance Tribe, a Harvard Law professor, said that she’s not optimistic about the bill considering that the justices from the Supreme Court took the cases so quickly. Other legal experts, like tribe, don’t believe that the plan will survive the supreme court. “It’s basically put the program in deep freeze until it proceeds to most likely dismantle it,” Tribe said.
The Biden Administration insists they’ve been acting within the law with the student forgiveness plan, using the Heroes Act of 2003 as an argument. That act grants the education secretary the authority to waive regulations related to student loans during national emergencies. The deadline for Bidens administration to submit to the court its opening brief in the cases is January 4th.
Wrap Up
This loan relief plan would have lifted a weight off many who owe money in federal student loans. The pessimistic approach from many legal experts does not bode well for this bill to survive the court’s ruling. However, we will be monitoring the situation as it unfolds.