Supreme Court puts Biden’s new student debt relief plan on hold amid legal battles

The Supreme Court has put the Biden administration’s latest multibillion-dollar student debt relief plan on hold while numerous lawsuits continue to play out in lower courts.

The justices rejected the administration’s request to reinstate most of the plan, which had previously been blocked by the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. In an unsigned order, the Supreme Court said it expected the appeals court to issue a more comprehensive decision on the plan “as soon as possible.” The Education Department’s initiative aims to provide a faster path to loan forgiveness and reduce income-based monthly payments from 10 percent to 5 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income. In addition, the plan would eliminate payments for borrowers earning less than 225 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $32,800 a year for a single person.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority had already rejected a plan that would have canceled more than $400 billion in student loan debt. Estimates of the cost of the new SAVE plan range from $276 billion, according to the administration’s Congressional Budget Office, to $475 billion over 10 years, according to projections from Republican-led states that are challenging the plan.

(With contributions from agencies.)