Chicago – February 18, 2025
The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals officially ended former President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan on Tuesday.
The plan, called the SAVE program, aimed to forgive student loans for millions of Americans. It was challenged by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who sued the Biden administration over the plan, which was expected to forgive up to $500 million in student loans. The court ruled that Biden’s Secretary of Education went too far by creating a plan that forgave loans instead of having them repaid.
Bailey said in a statement that the ruling only stops future presidents from trying to use the same plan, not affecting anything already in place.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Biden administration’s request to lift a block on the SAVE plan. Before this, a Missouri federal appeals court had already stopped the plan from being enforced. The Department of Justice, which is part of the Biden administration, had asked the Supreme Court to step in.
Biden introduced the SAVE program after his original loan forgiveness plan was blocked by the Supreme Court. The White House said the SAVE plan could help borrowers by lowering monthly payments or even reducing them to zero, and it promised loan forgiveness for those with smaller loan balances after 10 years of payments.
