President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program has been temporarily blocked.
According to The Hill, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th circuit has placed a temporary hold on the program until all challenges are worked out. This ruling followed a federal judge dismissing states’ lawsuits against the program and Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s declining to take up an appeal from a Wisconsin-based group.
President Biden earlier announced that the U.S. government would roll out the largest debt forgiveness program in history: forgiving $10,000 of student loans for those without Pell Grants and $20,000 for those with Pell Grants. Borrowers eligible for forgiveness have to have earned less than $125,000 in either 2020 or 2021 and married couples or heads of households who made less than $250,000 annually.
USA Today reported that the Biden administration cannot enact the program “until it rules on an emergency request by six Republican states – Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina – as an attempt to block the policy.”
According to CNN, 22 million people have already applied for debt relief after the application opened up last week. Some groups believe that the Biden administration cannot legally grant student loan forgiveness while the Biden administration cites the 2003 Heroes Act as granting them authority to administer debt relief.