GOP-Led States Sue To Block Biden Student Debt Relief Plan

A group of seven GOP-led states on Tuesday sued to block the Biden administration’s latest effort to provide student loan forgiveness.

The lawsuit, led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, accuses Education Secretary Miguel Cardona of trying to unlawfully provide $73 million in student debt relief overnight with hundreds of billions more to follow.

“This is the third time the Secretary has unlawfully tried to mass cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in loans,” the lawsuit states. “Courts stopped him the first two times, when he tried to do so openly. So now he is trying to do so through cloak and dagger.”

Bailey is joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys general of Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota and Ohio.

The GOP attorneys general are taking aim at a proposed plan, which is due to be finalized this fall, under which millions of student borrowers would be eligible for debt relief.

In April, the U.S. Department of Education announced the proposed rules, which, if approved, would allow the department to offer partial or full debt relief to four groups of student borrowers: borrowers who currently owe more than they did when they entered repayment, those who have been in repayment for over 20 years, borrowers eligible for immediate debt forgiveness who haven’t applied for the relief, and those who enrolled in institutions with low financial value.

The department offered that borrowers could opt out of the relief by Aug. 30.

The lawsuit follows a ruling by the Supreme Court last week, which put on hold the Saving on a Valuable Education plan, which would have reduced the payment for millions of student borrowers, while legal challenges continue in the lower courts.

Last year, the Supreme Court declared Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan unconstitutional.

“One would have hoped the Secretary would have learned to stick with the statutory forgiveness programs that Congress actually passed. Instead, the only lesson the Secretary learned was the need for secrecy,” Tuesday’s lawsuit reads.

The attorneys general noted that the seven states have documents showing that Cardona “is implementing this plan without publication and has been planning to do so since May.” They added that the documentation shows Cardona has ordered third-party organizations that service federal loans to cancel hundreds of billion of dollars in debt as soon as this week.

However, none of this relief could actually be provided to borrowers until the rules are finalized.

Still, Bailey expressed confidence that they would emerge successful in their effort to block the proposed rules from going into effect.

“They may be throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, but my office is meeting them every step of the way,” Bailey said in a statement.

The Department of Education has declined to comment on the lawsuit.

So far, the Biden administration has approved over $168 billion in student loan relief for about 4.8 million borrowers through various actions.