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The legal battle over President Joe Biden’s plan for student debt relief could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court as the government seeks to lift a lower court order that blocked the program indefinitely, Bloomberg News reported. The Biden administration, which has been fighting multiple challenges to the program, said Thursday in a Texas court filing that it planned to ask the high court to reverse a Monday order in a separate case from a federal appeals court in St. Louis involving a lawsuit brought by six Republican-led states. Implementation of the plan, which would distribute as much as $20,000 to qualified borrowers, has been on hold since Oct. 21, when the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency stay. Last week, in a separate case brought by two borrowers, a federal judge in Texas struck down the plan as unlawful. About 26 million people had requested student-debt forgiveness before the U.S. Department of Education stopped accepting applications. Only borrowers making less than $125,000 a year, or $250,000 for households, can qualify. In the Texas case, the U.S. government already has asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the decision by the lower court judge who ruled in favor of Job Creators Network Foundation, a conservative advocacy group that sued on behalf of two Texans who claim that their education debt was unfairly excluded from the program.

A federal judge struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan on Nov. 10. The ruling is being challenged, but that hasn’t stopped scammers eager to capitalize on borrowers’ confusion and frustration, the Wall Street Journal reported. Scams targeting Americans impatient for debt forgiveness surged in the first 10 months of 2022, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The agency received 76,000 complaints of scams related to student loans through the end of October, compared with 46,243 for all of 2021. Scammers sprinkle details from the latest headlines to add urgency and authenticity, with some claiming they can fast-track applications and payments, federal officials said. “Scammers follow the news. So a seasoned scammer will weave in language from actual loan benefits and loan programs along with things that are purely fraudulent,” said Michelle Grajales, a staff lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission. “They might promise to get you $60,000 of loan forgiveness next month.”

A U.S. appeals court has extended a block on President Joe Biden's administration from fulfilling his plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt at the urging of six Republican-led states, a court filing on Monday showed, Reuters reported. The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction barring the U.S. Department of Education from erasing student loan debt as part of Biden's plan to deliver "life-changing relief" to tens of millions of borrowers. The court on Oct. 21 temporarily barred Biden's administration from discharging student loans while it considered an emergency request by the six states for an injunction. The states' case was dismissed, though they are appealing that decision. Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina claim Biden's plan skirted congressional authority and threatens the states' future tax revenues and money earned by state entities that invest in or service student loans. But U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey in St. Louis on Oct. 20 dismissed the states' case, saying that while that raised important challenges they lacked legal standing. Debt forgiveness would eliminate about $430 billion of the $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt and that over 40 million people were eligible to benefit, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.Read more.

In related news, White House officials are weighing extending a pause on student debt payments after a federal appeals court blocked President Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in debt per borrower, the Washington Post reported. In August, Biden announced that the administration would implement student debt forgiveness while simultaneously ending a moratorium on student debt payments that started during the pandemic. But Biden’s plan has so far been thwarted in the courts. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, by a 3-0 vote on Monday, issued an injunction preventing the administration from going forward with discharging debt, and a Texas judge last week declared the program unlawful in a separate ruling. Although the Biden administration has vowed to defend the program in court, White House officials have in recent days discussed the possibility of extending the debt freeze again if they are unable to move forward with the president’s initial program. Payments had been scheduled to resume on Jan. 1 in conjunction with the loan forgiveness. Read more.

The Biden administration faces a complicated legal path for jump-starting its mass student-debt cancellation plan after a federal judge in Texas blocked it on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported. In light of the ruling, the Education Department has stopped accepting applications for the program after nearly 20 million people submitted their income information in recent weeks. The administration immediately moved to appeal the decision and could file a motion that seeks to stay the Texas ruling for now. But even if that request were successful, the White House is still facing a roadblock in a separate case pending in a different jurisdiction. The St. Louis-based Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals already had placed the program on hold in a temporary order last month, in a case brought by Republican officials in six states. An additional ruling from that court is expected in the coming days. On Wednesday, before the debt-relief plan was struck down, President Biden singled out the issue as a top one that motivated young voters to turn out for the midterms in “historic numbers.” “We will continue to keep borrowers informed about our efforts to deliver targeted relief,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Friday. “Separately, we remain committed to taking other actions to fix longstanding issues in the student loan forgiveness system and hold schools accountable for leaving students with mountains of debt and without the skills and preparation to find good jobs.” Biden administration officials have been quietly preparing for the possibility that a court would strike down the program, according to administration officials, and have been discussing both legal and policy responses to such a move.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Friday again declined to block President Joe Biden's plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt, this time in a challenge brought by two Indiana borrowers, even as a lower court considers whether to lift a freeze it imposed on the program in a different case, Reuters reported. Justice Barrett denied an emergency request by the Indiana borrowers, represented by a conservative legal group, to bar the U.S. Department of Education from implementing the Democratic president's plan to forgive debt held by qualified people who had taken loans to pay for college. Justice Barrett on Oct. 20 denied a similar request by a Wisconsin taxpayers organization represented by another conservative legal group. The justice acted in the cases because she is the justice assigned to handle certain emergency requests from a group of states that includes Indiana and Wisconsin.

Two Indiana borrowers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt President Joe Biden’s student-loan relief plan, saying that his administration is overstepping its authority and forcing them to pay higher state taxes, Bloomberg News reported. The emergency filing, submitted to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, comes 12 days after she summarily rejected a similar bid by a Wisconsin taxpayers group. Justice Barrett is assigned to handle emergency matters from the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused to block the program last week. The Biden plan, designed to take effect this month, would forgive as much as $20,000 in federal loans for certain borrowers making less than $125,000 per year or $250,000 for spouses. It could affect more than 40 million people. The filing asks the Supreme Court to block the program while the case is on appeal. It was announced by the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the two borrowers.