U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in regards to the Supreme Court’s decision overruling student debt forgiveness within the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., June 30, 2023.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images
President Joe Biden suggested on Friday that he was searching for one other avenue to deliver student debt relief after the Supreme Court rejected his forgiveness plan.
“Today’s decision has closed one path,” Biden said during a briefing Friday. “Now we will pursue one other.”
Biden says his administration will try and deliver a unique loan forgiveness program under the Higher Education Act. The 1965 law allows the secretary of education to “compromise, waive or release any right, title, claim, lien or demand, nevertheless acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.”
The president didn’t provide many details about how this recent approach might work, but said it was “legally sound.”
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In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority struck down Biden’s plan to cancel as much as $20,000 in student debt for tens of hundreds of thousands of Americans. The high court said the president did not have the authority to instruct his Education secretary to cancel such a considerable amount of consumer debt without authorization from Congress.
Consumer advocates said the debt cancelation shouldn’t die with the Supreme Court ruling.
“Biden must use one other legal authority to deliver on this important obligation, and he must achieve this immediately,” said Astra Taylor, co-founder of the Debt Collective, a union of debtors.
Other relief measures after forgiveness is nixed
The president also said that his administration’s recent payment plan, which slashes monthly bills in half for a lot of student loan borrowers, could be available before payments resume.
Federal student loan payments have been on pause since March 2020.
After student loan bills restart, there can even be a 12-month period during which borrowers won’t face the harshest consequences of missing payments, including negative credit reports and collection activity.
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