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WASHINGTON (CN) — President Joe Biden laid out his latest round of student loan forgiveness on Thursday, announcing he would cancel 35,000 public service workers’ debts, which total over $1.2 billion.
The affected borrowers include teachers, nurses, law enforcement officials and first responders who applied for forgiveness under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
But just hours after Biden’s announcement, older pieces of his loan forgiveness project — the Saving on a Valuable Educate or SAVE Plan — were put on pause when the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals granted Republican-led states’ request to halt the program while it considers a long-term injunction.
The freeze expanded upon a decision by U.S. District Judge John Ross of the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis to stay certain parts of the program, and comes as a similar legal challenge in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals makes its way to the Supreme Court.
Thursday’s announcement brings the total number of people to have their debt forgiven to 4.76 million.
In a statement detailing the move, Biden lauded his administration’s efforts over his time in office to deliver on his campaign promise to alleviate the debts that nearly 43 million Americans deal with.
He highlighted previous actions like increasing the maximum Pell Grant, adjusting income-driven repayment plans and taking action against colleges for “taking advantage” of students and their families. Biden said that all together, his plans would cancel the debts of over 30 million Americans who make less than $150,000.
“From day one of my administration, I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” Biden said in the statement. “I will never stop working to make higher education affordable — no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us.”
The SAVE Plan, announced in 2022 and originally set to begin July 1, would have lowered monthly payments for all borrowers based on their income and family size; prevented balances from growing due to unpaid interest; and provided forgiveness for people who borrowed $12,000 or less within 10 years.
Judge Ross, a Barack Obama appointee, blocked the Department of Education from granting further loan forgiveness under the plan in a June 24 ruling, but left the remainder of the plan in place.
According to a Department of Education reply brief filed in the Missouri court July 8, borrowers who had enrolled in the SAVE Plan were then enrolled in “something of a hybrid” plan, where borrowers could still receive debt forgiveness under a previous plan known as REPAYE.
The appellate court granted the requested stay of the remaining pieces of the plan in a one-page, one-sentence order posted Thursday afternoon, freezing that hybrid plan entirely.
In conjunction with the SAVE Plan, Biden also announced a broader $430 billion program that would have canceled up to $20,000 in debt for up to 43 million Americans. That plan was similarly blocked by the Supreme Court in a June 2023 6-3 ruling, in which Chief Justice John Roberts found that Biden had used an impermissible theory of authority to forgive the loans.
The SAVE plan was also subject another Republican-led legal challenge in Kansas, where a federal judge blocked parts of the SAVE plan in June, which ultimately was put on hold by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
A group of the GOP attorneys general appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, asking the high court to reinstate the U.S. district judge’s previous injunction. The high court’s most recent term ended July 1. It will begin hearing arguments again in October.
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