Two federal judges in Kansas and Missouri on Monday at the urging of several Republican-led states blocked President Joe Biden’s administration from further implementing a new student debt relief plan that lowers payments.
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The Biden administration is gearing up to try to forgive the student debt of tens of millions of Americans again, after the Supreme Court struck down its first effort last year.
In the coming days, the U.S. Department of Education will begin emailing borrowers who may be eligible for the wide-scale loan cancellation, the department said on Wednesday. It hopes to deliver that relief in the fall, possibly weeks before the 2024 presidential election.
“Today, the Biden-Harris administration takes another step forward in our drive to deliver student debt relief to borrowers who’ve been failed by a broken system,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement.
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If, for some reason, a borrower wants to opt out of the debt forgiveness, they must do so by Aug. 30 with their loan servicer, the Education Department said.
Borrowers who are likely to qualify for partial or full debt erasure include those who owe more now than they did at the start of repayment and people who have been paying on their loans for decades.
The same day the Supreme Court blocked President Joe Biden’s first attempt at sweeping student loan forgiveness, he announced that the White House would try to deliver the relief another way.
Originally, the president attempted to cancel the debt through an executive action. For his Plan B, he has directed the Education Department to pursue the regulatory process, which experts say should increase its chances of surviving the inevitable next round of legal challenges.
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