The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Biden’s controversial program to forgive student loan debt for roughly 40 million borrowers exceeded his executive authority.
On the last day before the high court’s summer recess, the six conservative justices ruled the $400 billion plan could not use an earlier 2003 law meant to help veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to implement the program.
The other three liberal justices dissented against the ruling.
Biden last August announced his student loan forgiveness plan, which aimed to cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt for certain borrowers.
But the program was met with fierce resistance from many GOP lawmakers who questioned its legality.
Legal challenges against the Biden administration were brought by attorneys general in six GOP-led states and two borrowers who did not qualify for the program’s full benefits.
The states argued Biden didn’t have the power to cancel the mountains of student debt for borrowers, and instead needed to turn to Congress to enact legislation tied to the loan forgiveness.
The White House argued it had the power to unilaterally enact the program under the decades-old Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, claiming the student loan cancellation is doling out an existing benefit, and not new legislation.
The HEROES Act was passed in 2003 to help US Service members financially while overseas fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq. The law was later widened to give the Department of Education the ability to alter terms of other federal student loans during national emergencies.
Even though the national emergency tied to COVID-19 ended on May 11 at the direction of Biden, the White House argued to the Supreme Court this February that the economic consequences of the pandemic will last longer, making the forgiveness necessary.
Under Biden’s plan, the federal government would have forgiven up to $10,000 in federal student debt for Americans that make less than $125,000 annually and $20,000 for Pell grant recipients who came from lower-income families.
Biden vowed to cancel student debt during his run for presidential run in 2020.
The Supreme Court’s ruling comes a day after it ruled 6-3 that colleges and universities could not factor in an applicant’s race to determine admissions.
