Advocates of student debt relief want President Joe Biden to use a 1965 law to cancel student debt if the Supreme Court overturns his loan forgiveness program, Bloomberg News reported. Biden’s current plan — to forgive as much as $20,000 in federal loans for certain borrowers making less than $125,000 per year, $250,000 for households — is based on his authority in the 2003 Heroes Act. A Supreme Court ruling invalidating the loan forgiveness program looks likely as the court issues some its most momentous decisions this week. Astra Taylor, a co-founder of the Debt Collective — a 50,000-member group — points to provisions in the Higher Education Act from almost six decades ago that Biden could use instead to forgive student debt. But this alternative strategy advocates are coalescing around would be time-consuming and could easily delay any relief until after the 2024 election, Jed Shugerman, a law professor at Fordham University, said. The Higher Education Act requires a lengthy rule-making process that could take about a year and then after that litigation by opponents would likely drag things out longer, he said.
