WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive millions of student loans, ruling the nation’s chief executive did not have legal authority to waive more than $400 billion owed to the government.
The Biden administration had asserted its right to cancel the loans as part of its emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic and under a 2003 law called the HEROES Act, passed at the time of the Iraq War.
By a 6-3 vote in Biden v. Nebraska, the court’s conservatives said that only Congress could authorize such a large-scale cancellation of government-provided loans, and it had not done so.
