Court will review legality of Biden’s student-debt relief, but plan remains on hold for now

The Supreme Court will fast-track a challenge to the Biden administration’s student-debt relief program and hear oral argument in February, the court said Thursday. The $400 billion program will remain on hold in the meantime due to lower-court rulings that have blocked the government from implementing it.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, acting alone, had turned down two earlier requests from opponents of the program to block it without even seeking a response from the Biden administration. But after a federal appeals court in Missouri put the program on hold last month, it was the administration’s turn to ask the justices to intervene. In a brief unsigned order on Thursday, the court declined to lift the appeals court’s ruling but took up an alternative suggestion from the Biden administration: setting the case for argument quickly with the prospect of definitively resolving the legality of the program.

Biden announced the program in August. He relied on the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (known as the HEROES Act), a law passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that allows the federal government to make changes to student-loan programs to respond to national emergencies.

Six states, led by Nebraska, went to federal court in Missouri to challenge the program. U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey threw the case out, holding that the states do not have a legal right to sue, known as standing. But the states appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, which blocked the program.