Sept. 4 (UPI) — Seven GOP-led states have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s latest attempt at cancelling student debt, stating the plan will begin erasing loans as soon as this week if not stopped by the courts.
President Joe Biden has twice previously tried to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt held by millions of borrowers, which have been met by Republican lawsuits and injunctions by the court.
In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, the states, led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, accused Education Secretary Miguel Cardona of attempting to secretly mass cancel student debt after the courts stopped him from doing so twice before.
“This is the third time the Secretary has unlawfully tried to mass cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in loans. Courts stopped him the first two times, when he tried to do so openly. So now he is trying to do so through cloak and dagger,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit is centered on a new rule that was announced by the White House in April that would provide debt relief to some tens of millions of Americans.
The plan, which has yet to be finalized, would eliminate accrued interest for 23 million borrowers, cancel the full amount of student debt held by 4 million borrowers and provide some 10 million borrowers with at least $5,000 in debt relief.
The lawsuit describes the plan as not only Cardona’s “weakest” of the three so far proposed but the “most aggressive” as it could start canceling loans as soon as this week.
“That is both extraordinarily inequitable and also expressly violates a statute prohibiting the Secretary from implementing rules like this one sooner than 60 days after publication,” the lawsuit states, while accusing Cardona of “trying to quietly rush this rule out too quickly for anybody to sue.”
Bailey said the plan was the Biden administration’s attempt to saddle working Americans with “Ivy League debt.”
“We successfully halted their first two illegal student loan cancellation schemes; I have no doubt we will secure yet another win to block the third one,” he said in a statement. “They may be throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, but my office is meeting them every step of the way.”
Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota and Ohio joined Missouri in the lawsuit.
The first plan to cancel debt by the Biden administration — called the HEROES Plan — was unveiled by Cardona in late August 2022 that would have erased up to $20,000 of federal student loan debt for borrowers below a certain income level. It was blocked by the Supreme Court last year.
Then in July 2023, the Biden administration unveiled the SAVE Plan, which would have lowered monthly payments and ended interest growth. It was blocked by the Supreme Court last week.