WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive millions of student loans, ruling that the nation’s chief executive does not have the 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.
In a 6-3 vote in Biden v. Nebraska, the court’s conservatives said only Congress could authorize such a large-scale cancellation of government-provided loans, and it has not done so.
