A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked President Joe Biden's administration from continuing to implement a new student debt relief plan designed to lower monthly payments for millions of Americans.
The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
granted a request by seven Republican-led states to put on hold parts of the U.S. Department of Education's debt relief plan that had not already been blocked by a lower-court judge.
That
ruling last month by U.S. District Judge John Ross in St. Louis had blocked the department from granting further loan forgiveness under the administration's Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan but had not blocked all of the plan.
That plan provides more generous terms than past income-based repayment plans, lowering monthly payments for eligible borrowers and allowing those whose original principal balances were $12,000 or less to have their debt forgiven after 10 years.
State attorneys general led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey subsequently last week asked the 8th Circuit to block the rest of the SAVE Plan. The court did so through a one-page order granting an administrative stay.
Bailey on the social platform X hailed the ruling as a "huge win for every American who still believes in paying their own way." He said the student loan plan "would have saddled working Americans with half-a-trillion dollars in Ivy League debt."
The Education Department had no immediate comment.
Biden, a Democrat, announced the SAVE Plan in 2022, alongside a broader $430 billion program that would have fulfilled a campaign promise by cancelling up to $20,000 in debt for up to 43 million Americans. It was ultimately blocked by the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in June 2023.
