Becoming the latest challenge to President Joe Biden’s efforts on student debt, more than a dozen Republican senators this week announced a move to block the Biden administration’s new student loan repayment plan.
During the upper chamber’s first week back in session since August break, Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., John Cornyn, R-Texas, Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., and 14 other GOP senators introduced a Congressional Review Act seeking to overturn Biden’s SAVE plan.
The Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan was finalized in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the president’s student loan forgiveness program in June. The new plan lowers monthly payments for borrowers based on income, halts loans from growing due to unpaid interest and lessens requirements for low-balance borrowers to receive forgiveness.
The senators argue the program, which Cassidy dubbed “Biden’s newest student loan scheme” is unfair to Americans who did not take out loans for school and does nothing to tackle the root issue of making college more affordable. It echoes concerns expressed by the GOP about Biden’s original student debt cancellation proposal the high court struck down.
“President Biden continues to propose budget-busting student loan bailouts that would force 87 percent of Americans who do not have student loan debt to bear the costs of the 13 percent of Americans who do,” Thune said in a statement this week. “It’s incredibly unfair to those who never incurred student debt because they didn’t attend college in the first place or because they either worked their way through school or their family pinched pennies and planned for higher education.”
“Our resolution protects the 87 percent of Americans who don’t have student debt and will be forced to shoulder the burden of the President’s irresponsible and unfair policy,” Cassidy added.
In June, Cassidy, Cornyn and three other GOP senators unveiled their own plan to address student debt, focusing on transparency around college costs and restricting or limiting some graduate school loan and debt repayment options.
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona defended the Biden administration’s SAVE program in an interview with CNN on Friday.
“Those who are vehemently opposed to it have not spoken to their constituents who are drowning or need support, who need to make higher education more accessible,” he said.
During the official rollout of the application for the plan, Biden declared it “the most affordable student loan plan ever.”
The Biden administration estimates more than 20 million people could benefit from the plan and the typical borrower will save around $1,000 a year.
On Tuesday, officials announced more than 4 million borrowers are already enrolled.
It comes with less than a month to go until borrowers must start paying their federal student loans for the first time in three years after a pandemic pause. Interest already began to accrue again this month.
When the Supreme Court ruled in June that Biden did not have the power to cancel some student debt under the HEROES Act, the president pivoted, announcing he would try again under the Higher Education Act. He promised the new method was “legally sound” but warned the process would be timely.
In the meantime, Biden also laid out a 12-month “on-ramp” period in which borrowers will not receive harsh financial penalties, such as being reported to credit bureaus or debt collection agencies, if they miss a payment between Oct. 2023 and Sept. 2024.