(UnitedVoice.com) – The Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s massive student loan forgiveness program in July. Shortly after the ruling was announced, the POTUS revealed another plan targeting a smaller group of borrowers. A court has now dismissed a lawsuit challenging the plan.
On August 14, US District Judge Thomas Ludington, who serves the Eastern District of Michigan, dismissed a lawsuit filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) on behalf of the Cato Institute and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The organizations argued the president’s new plan for forgiveness is an overstep of his power by not moving the plan through the administrative process, allowing people to comment on the change before it goes into effect. The groups also claimed the forgiveness plan would hurt their recruitment efforts.
Ludington ruled the conservative groups didn’t have standing to bring the complaint forward. The judge said their damages were insufficient, and even if they were, “they have not adequately demonstrated a causal link between Defendants’ action and an identifiable injury.”
The new forgiveness plan would allow more than 800,000 people to have their debts wiped out if they have been in a repayment plan for more than 20 years. A 2022 report by the Government Accountability Office found the government had not started tracking payments for forgiveness until a decade after the first income-driven plan was in effect, The Washington Post reported.
Sheng Li, a lawyer for NCLA, issued a statement after the ruling was handed down, saying the organization is reviewing its options in the wake of the ruling.
Biden released a statement on August 14, reiterating his promise to “fight for hardworking families and fix problems in the student loan system” that he thinks is failing Americans. He said he was “proud that [his] Administration is delivering on that promise.”
The plan will likely face more legal challenges. Experts expect it to go before the Supreme Court in the future.
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