JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Today, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced that the United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of his office in its challenge to the Biden Administration’s unilateral and unlawful wealth transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt. In a 6-3 decision, the Court struck down Biden’s repayment plan as unconstitutional, citing the massive $430 billion-plus impact on the federal budget without express authority from Congress.
“As someone who paid for my education in blood, sweat, and tears in service to my nation, I am extremely pleased with the Court’s ruling today,” said Attorney General Bailey. “The Court recognized that Joe Biden’s plan to force farmers, schoolteachers, and truckers to pay the student loan debts of Ivy League graduates was a gross abuse of power and a slap in the face to every working American who didn’t attend college or who paid off their debts. I’m proud to have led in the fight to halt Biden’s unconstitutional plan in its tracks and to protect everyday Americans from being saddled with the enormous cost of the plan.”
Missouri argued to the Supreme Court that creating a roughly half-trillion-dollar loan-“cancellation” program that extends to nearly all borrowers, and which forces working Americans to pay other people’s debts, is a stunning overreach of power and a matter of great economic and political significance that has never been authorized by Congress. The Biden Administration rested its argument on the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act), a limited bill created to help veterans in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
The Court sided with Missouri and ruled that the HEROES Act simply does not justify the Secretary of Education’s sweeping creation of this discharge program. That Act was passed primarily to ensure that active-duty military could pause their student-loan payments while serving our country. Every congressional finding supporting the Act focused on providing relief to people serving in the “military” for “our nation’s defense.”
The Court agreed with Attorney General Bailey, ruling that Congress never gave the Secretary of Education authority to force working Americans to pay for other people’s student loans.
Reiterating the basic principle that Congress, not the Executive branch, gets to write the laws, the Court held, “What the Secretary has actually done is draft a new section of the Education Act from scratch by ‘waiving’ provisions root and branch and then filling the empty space with radically new text.”
Before reaching the nation’s highest court, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals had sided with the states and enjoined Biden’s unlawful bailout, holding that Missouri and its student loan servicing company, MOHELA, would be “negatively impacted” by the plan. The Supreme Court affirmed this ruling, holding that MOHELA was an arm of Missouri’s state government, and therefore, granted the state standing to challenge the student loan plan.
Joining Missouri in filing suit were the attorneys general of Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Carolina.
Missouri’s Supreme Court brief can be found here.