US President Joe Biden speaks within the Eisenhower Executive Office Constructing in Washington, D.C., US, on Monday, Oct. 17, 2022.
Bonnie Money | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Supreme Court said Thursday that it can hear arguments in a case difficult the Biden administration’s student loan debt relief plan, but kept in place a lower appeals court’s injunction that forestalls that program from taking effect for now.
Oral arguments within the case were set for February within the order released Thursday.
The administration on Nov. 18 asked the Supreme Court to lift an injunction against the coed loan relief program, which might cancel tons of of billions of dollars in federal debt.
The U.S. eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis issued that injunction on Nov. 14 in response to a legal challenge by six Republican-led states.
Days earlier, Judge Mark Pittman in U.S. District Court in Texas ruled the debt relief plan was unconstitutional, in response to a different lawsuit difficult this system.
That ruling, which also applies nationwide, likewise stays in effect.
The Biden administration had asked the federal fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Recent Orleans to place a brief hold on the choice.
But on Wednesday night, the fifth Circuit refused to grant that hold. The administration was expected to ask the Supreme Court to dam Pittman’s ruling from remaining in effect.
People walk across the plaza of the U.S. Supreme Court constructing on the primary day of the court’s latest term in Washington, U.S. October 3, 2022.Â
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
President Joe Biden’s plan would cancel as much as $20,000 in debt for hundreds of thousands of people that took out student loans.
By early November, before the injunctions were issued, nearly 26 million people had applied for this system. About 16 million applications had been approved before this system was suspended.
The administration last week said it can extend a pause in required payments on federal student loans until after June, or until court-issued blocks on the debt forgiveness plan are removed.
“We’re extending the payment pause because it will be deeply unfair to ask borrowers to pay a debt that they would not should pay, were it not for the baseless lawsuits brought by Republican officials and special interests,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a Nov. 23 statement.’
Without that pause, federal student debt holders would have been scheduled to resume their payments in January.
