Federal Court Blocks Targeted Student Loan Forgiveness Program

Late last week, a federal District Court judge blocked the Biden Administration Targeted Student Loan Debt Relief program, declaring it illegal. Among a crowd of legal challenges, this is the most serious setback for the program to date. The Department of Justice has already filed an appeal on behalf of the Administration, but, while we await results of the appeal, the Department of Education is holding existing applications and stopped accepting new applications. In a statement released on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre indicated that the Biden administration strongly disagrees with the District Court's ruling and will continue to fight this—and any other—legal challenges. "For the 26 million borrowers who have already given the Department of Education the necessary information to be considered for debt relief—16 million of whom have already been approved for relief—the Department will hold onto their information so it can quickly process their relief once we prevail in court." The following message appears on the Federal Student Aid website:

Courts have issued orders blocking our student debt relief program. As a result, at this time, we are not accepting applications. We are seeking to overturn those orders. If you've already applied, we'll hold your application. Subscribe and check back here for updates. We will post information as soon as further updates are available.

We encourage borrowers to be patient and subscribe to Federal Student Aid updates by email at ed.gov/subscriptions. We also remind borrowers that the current pause on federal student loan payments, in effect since March 2020, is scheduled to end on December 31, 2022. We, therefore, urge borrowers to prepare for repayment to resume in January.