The Supreme Court of the United States has rejected this Friday a second request to block the Biden Administration’s student loan forgiveness program, after a federal court in the state of Indiana ruled against this measure.
US Supreme Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett has refused to accept the legal challenge presented by leaders of six states governed by the Republican Party with which they sought to prevent the country’s government from forgiving student debts of up to 10,000 dollars to young people who earn less than $125,000 a year, as reported by CNBC.
Previously, the conservative legal group had argued that Biden’s student loan forgiveness program harmed Indiana taxpayers, and a month earlier another Republican group had justified the appeal by claiming that the federal government “does not have the authority to cancel the debt because Congress has not authorized it.
In both cases, a federal district court rejected their arguments and dismissed the appeals, concluding that the plaintiffs did not have standing to file them, taking the suit to the Supreme Court.
However, despite the rejection of the Supreme Court judge, the debt forgiveness program will continue to stall due to another court order that blocks the process until it is resolved in court, according to Forbes magazine.
Even so, the temporary suspension of the program does not prevent borrowers from continuing to apply for student debt relief or stop reviewing applications so that they are ready once the blockade ends, as announced two weeks ago in a statement by the White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.
Biden’s plan proposes the cancellation of 10,000 dollars in the debt acquired by all those young people who earn less than 125,000 dollars a year. And, in the case of those who have received public aid to pursue higher education, the pardoned money amounts to $20,000, according to the White House.
The US Administration estimates that 45 million citizens have debts of this type, for a total of 1,600 million dollars. About 16 percent of these people do not have the resources to pay for them and this burden is especially heavy on traditionally vulnerable groups, such as the black community.
Despite several attempts by the Republican Party to strike down the measure, the US government has argued that it is authorized to cancel the debt through the Higher Education Student Relief Opportunity Act of 2003. The legislation allows Secretary of Education cancel the debt of student loan borrowers in times of “national emergency”.