President Joe Biden has announced a plan to use executive authority to cancel up to $10,000 in student loan debt for every borrower who earns less than $125,000 a year while canceling up to $20,000 for every borrower who took out a Pell Grant and earns less than $125,000 a year. Typically, an action of this sort would be performed by Congress, not the president, since it is Congress that is exclusively vested with the federal spending power under the U.S. Constitution (see Article I, Section 8). So where does Biden purport to get the authority to do this and will his legal justifications hold up in court?
The Biden administration says it has the authority to unilaterally cancel student loan debt under the terms of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003. According to President George W. Bush, who signed the act into law, it "permits the Secretary of Education to waive or modify Federal student financial assistance program requirements to help students and their families or academic institutions affected by a war, other military operation, or national emergency." Basically, the HEROES Act was designed to let the executive branch ameliorate the student loan situations of service members fighting the war on terror.
