Students and borrowers waiting on President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan may soon breathe a sigh of relief.
According to NBC News, the president’s plan can move forward after a judge ruled Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, for a temporary restraining order against it to expire. U.S. District Judge Randall Hall, in his order from the Southern District of Georgia, said Georgia lacked standing to challenge the plan because it did not demonstrate any “concrete” or “imminent” injury.
“Without standing, the Court finds it proper to dismiss Georgia as a party to the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and turns to Defendants’ arguments related to venue,” he wrote, per NBC.
Hall also concurred with the federal government’s stance that the venue was improper, stating that a plaintiff without standing cannot create a venue where it wouldn’t otherwise exist. He determined that the “most equitable result” would be to transfer the case to a district with the proper venue, recommending the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Seven Republican-led states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota, and Ohio — filed the lawsuit against President Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in September. They argued that the administration’s plan for widespread student debt cancellation could adversely affect income tax revenue.
According to NBC, the Biden administration will publish its final rule on the student loan relief program in October, potentially providing relief for over 25 million borrowers. Biden introduced the revised plan in April after the Supreme Court blocked his original program in 2023, which aimed to cancel up to $20,000 for 43 million borrowers at a possible cost exceeding $400 billion.
“While Republican elected officials try every which way to block millions of their own constituents from receiving student debt cancellation, President Biden has vowed to use every tool available to cancel student debt for as many borrowers as possible, as quickly as possible,” read an April release from the White House.
“President Biden from Day One has worked to fix the student loan system and make sure higher education is a ticket to the middle class – not a barrier to opportunity, because he knows that debt cancellation not only benefits borrowers, it benefits the entire economy,” the release further stated.
The Biden-Harris Administration has granted $146 billion in student debt relief to 4 million Americans through over two dozen executive actions as of 2024. If the proposed rules are finalized this fall, the total number of borrowers receiving student debt relief during Biden’s presidency could reach 30 million when added to measures already taken by the administration, according to the White House.
“In total, these plans would fully eliminate accrued interest for 23 million borrowers, would cancel the full amount of student debt for over 4 million borrowers, and provide more than 10 million borrowers with at least $5,000 in debt relief or more,” the April release stated.
