As reported by NBC News on Thursday (Oct. 3), a federal judge allowed President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program to move forward by letting a temporary restraining order expire. The case originated from a lawsuit filed by seven Republican-led states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota, and Ohio.
U.S. District Judge Randall Hall dismissed Georgia from the case, citing the state's lack of standing to challenge the plan "because it failed to show an injury that is concrete, particularized, actual, or imminent." The judge also determined that the venue was improper and ordered the case to be transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
NBC added that the Biden administration's revised student debt relief plan, announced in April following the Supreme Court's rejection of the original program in 2023, could potentially benefit more than 25 million borrowers. This new iteration comes after the previous plan, which would have aided 43 million borrowers with up to $20,000 in debt cancellation at an estimated cost of over $400 billion, was struck down.
The Department of Education told reporters that if the proposed rules were finalized this fall, the total number of recipients of student debt relief under Biden's presidency would reach 30 million. “We will continue to fight for borrowers across the country who are struggling to repay their federal student loans,” a spokesperson for the Education Department stated via a CNBC report at that time.
As REVOLT revealed back in August, the Supreme Court declined to reinstate the Biden administration's SAVE plan (or Saving on a Valuable Education), an initiative that was put in place to cancel student debt for scores of borrowers. "The application to vacate injunction presented... to the Court is denied," the decision read. "The court expects that the Court of Appeals will render its decision with appropriate dispatch."