A federal judge on Monday paved the way for 804,000 borrowers to receive $39 billion in student loan debt relief.
President Joe Biden has scored a major court victory in his proposal for a more modest student loan debt relief after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his larger relief plan.
U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington on Monday dismissed a lawsuit from two conservative groups that sought to block 804,000 borrowers who had made payments for 20 to 25 years to begin receiving $39 billion in student loan debt relief this month. Biden announced the plan last month, just weeks after the Supreme Court blocked his bid to forgive around $400 billion in debt from millions of borrowers.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this month by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute, argued that „no authority allows the [Department of Education] to count non-payments as payments“ and accused the Biden administration of setting „an accelerated schedule“ for debt relief that was „apparently designed to evade judicial review.
