Biden administration to ask SCOTUS to unblock student debt relief plan

The Justice Department is planning to ask the Supreme Court to unblock the Biden administration's student debt cancellation plan, The Associated Press reports. The DOJ announced its plan Thursday in a legal filing, warning that further delays will lead to financial strain when loan payments restart in January.

Biden's proposed student debt relief plan has faced heavy criticism and legal opposition since it was unveiled. The Education Department recently announced they were putting the application on pause after a Texas judge blocked the plan in a lawsuit brought by the Job Creators Network Foundation on behalf of two borrowers. And just days after that, a federal appeals court in St. Louis issued an injunction halting the program nationwide.

The DOJ is attempting to appeal before SCOTUS the most recent ruling from St. Louis, and said it is ready to bring forward the Texas decision if needed. The administration is hoping the high court will block the previous orders so that the relief plan can move forward while legal challenges play out, per AP.

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In the court filing, the administration argues that keeping debt cancellation on hold would leave the government with an "unnecessarily perilous choice." If it restarts student loan payments in January as planned, millions of Americans will have to pay for the debt the plan promised to cancel. On the other hand, if the government extends the payment pause, it will lose billions of dollars in revenue.