President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, which would have provided borrowers with up to $20,000 in student loan relief, was struck down on Thursday by a federal judge who declared it unlawful.
Ruling that the program was an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power, District Judge Mark Pittman – a Trump appointee – rejected the Biden administration’s argument that it has the authority to forgive student loans under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003.
In a ruling that represents the biggest victory thus far for conservative opponents of the Biden administration’s debt relief program, Judge Pittman said on Thursday he found no clear congressional authorization for the program, which would forgive up to $10,000 for borrowers who make under $125,000 and up to $20,000 for Americans who received Pell Grants.
Pittman’s ruling was in response to the conservative advocacy group Job Creators Network Foundation’s lawsuit filed in October on the behalf of one borrower who was ineligible for the relief program and another borrower who was not eligible for the full $20,000.
The lawsuit argued that the Department of Education generally lacked the authority to forgive student loans under the HEROES Act and that it had failed in the process to allow for public notice and comment on the program.
The Department of Education, as an agency, technically receives its authority to make rules from Congress but Judge Pittman ruled that it failed to show that it has clear authorization from Congress for the program, which was required considering the vast economic and political significance of the issue of student loan forgiveness.
Pittman said in the ruling that is not the role of his court to determine whether the program constitutes good public policy, emphasizing that, however, no one can plausibly deny that it is one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the US or one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch.
The program was temporarily put on hold in late October by a federal appeals court following a challenge from six Republican-led states but only while the states’ appeal played out, avoiding to outright strike down the program.
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