Supreme Court

The legal battle over President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program has reached the Supreme Court, which will decide whether the administration has the authority to forgive the loans and whether the plaintiffs have standing to sue.

If the parties challenging the plan can’t clear the standing threshold, then the Supreme Court justices shouldn’t consider the other arguments that the debt-relief plan is illegal. But that might not stop the conservative justices from striking down loan forgiveness.

Executive overreach or legal use of statutory authority? That will be a key question for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider when it hears arguments in two debt-relief lawsuits early this year.

The court will hear arguments in February on whether the Biden administration is legally able to forgive federal student loans. An injunction blocking the debt relief will remain in place.

The extension, through June 30, gives the Supreme Court the opportunity to weigh in on the administration’s debt-relief plan during its current term.

Debt-relief advocates decry the ruling as “politically motivated” and “a miscarriage of justice” and ask the administration to extend the pause on student loan payments. (Update: U.S. appeals court imposes preliminary injunction.)

Nearly 22 million borrowers applied for loan forgiveness in the week since the application opened.