Supreme Court keeps student loan cancellation blocked

The United States Supreme Court said it will hear oral arguments over whether the Biden administration’s student loan cancellation program is legal and will keep blocking the program in the meantime, according to a Thursday court order. The case will be heard in February, which means the opinion could be announced sometime in June. Department of Justice Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar had filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the Biden administration’s program. Six states had filed the lawsuit. The pause on loan repayments was set to expire in about two months. 

How many people have applied for loan cancellation? More than 26 million people have already applied for the program. About 16 million of them were approved before the Education Department stopped processing applications last month when a federal judge in Texas struck down the plan in a separate ruling. The Congressional Budget Office has said the program would cost about $400 billion over the next 30 years. 

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Dunn’s report in Schooled about the cases that brought Biden’s plan to the Supreme Court.