Biden administration urges Supreme Court to let it continue implementing student loan repayment program
CNN
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let it continue cutting monthly student loan payments for roughly three million borrowers enrolled in a student loan repayment plan implemented last year.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let it continue cutting monthly student loan payments for roughly three million borrowers enrolled in a student loan repayment plan implemented last year. The fate of the program, known as SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education), is in flux as lower courts consider two legal challenges to it. Earlier this month, a group of three GOP-led states behind one of those challenges asked the high court to maintain a partial block on the program while the states’ larger legal challenge to it unfolds. A Denver-based appeals court later allowed the Biden administration to move forward with the program, which it began implementing this month. The Biden administration originally began phasing in the student loan repayment plan last year, before it was temporarily paused amid the legal challenges. Lawyers for the Biden administration told the high court on Wednesday that it should keep in place the order that let the program move forward. They argue that “borrowers would stand to suffer significant and irreparable harm” and many would “experience intense confusion” about the status of their loans if the court blocked the administration from lowering their monthly payments as planned. Many borrowers have already seen their monthly payments decrease and it would take at least several months for the administration to recalculate them, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court papers. Prelogar argued that the “widespread harm” that would come to borrowers if the court sides with the states outweighs any harm the states may experience as a result of the program staying in effect while litigation plays out.
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