The Daily Populous Saturday July 20th, 2024 night edition
Authored by cnbc.com and submitted by z8675309z

US President Joe Biden speaks about student loan debt relief at Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin, April 8, 2024.

The U.S. Department of Education says it will pause millions of student loan borrowers' payments while it defends its relief plan against legal challenges.

Borrowers enrolled in the Biden administration's new repayment program, known as SAVE, will be placed "in an interest-free forbearance," according to a statement from U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

A federal appeals court in Missouri issued a ruling on Thursday blocking the entire plan, which the White House says roughly 8 million people are enrolled in.

Lawsuits by Republican-led states, including Arkansas, Florida and Missouri, argue that the Biden administration overstepped its authority with SAVE, or Saving on a Valuable Education, and essentially was trying to find a roundabout way to forgive student debt after the Supreme Court blocked its sweeping plan in June 2023.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, wrote Thursday on X that the ruling against SAVE was a "HUGE win for every American who still believes in paying their own way."

"The Court granted our emergency motion to BLOCK Joe Biden's entire illegal student loan plan, which would have saddled working Americans with half-a-trillion dollars in Ivy League debt," Bailey wrote.

Just 0.3% of federal student borrowers attended Ivy League colleges, according to an estimate by higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

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SAVE comes with two key provisions that legal challenges have targeted: It has lower monthly payments than any other federal student loan repayment plan, and it leads to quicker debt erasure for those with small balances.

"It's shameful that politically motivated lawsuits waged by Republican elected officials are once again standing in the way of lower payments for millions of borrowers," Cardona said.

Before the legal challenges, the Education Department had already forgiven $5.5 billion in student debt for 414,000 borrowers through the SAVE Plan.

HereInTheCut on July 19th, 2024 at 14:23 UTC »

Just delay them forever the way the right’s judges do with their criminals facing justice.

wino6687 on July 19th, 2024 at 14:12 UTC »

I hope they can rescue the SAVE plan somehow. It made such a massive difference to paying down my loans instead of just combating the interest. Everything keeps going up in price like my rent and insurance and medications.

horrified-expression on July 19th, 2024 at 14:11 UTC »

I am still not sure what standing the plaintiffs and the AG of MO actually have. Much of what Biden did has been around for decades