U.S. President Joe Biden is flanked by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona as he speaks about administration plans to forgive federal student loan debt during remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 24, 2022.
Leah Millis | Reuters
The Biden administration has stopped accepting applications for federal student loan forgiveness after a court struck down the plan on Thursday evening.
“Courts have issued orders blocking our student debt relief program,” according to a note on the forgiveness application page at Studentaid.gov. “As a result, at this time, we are not accepting applications. We are seeking to overturn those orders.”
The suspension of the forgiveness program comes shortly after a federal judge in Texas rejected President Joe Biden’s executive action in August to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for tens of millions of Americans.
“In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone,” wrote Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, in his 26-page decision. Pittman, who was appointed in 2019 by former President Donald Trump, sided with the Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy group.
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The group had called Biden’s plan “irrational, arbitrary and unfair,” and accused the president of overreaching his authority. Their complaint argued that the White House ignored federal procedures by not seeing public comment on its program.
The Biden administration said the Justice Department has already appealed the decision.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
