- Missouri AG Eric Schmitt led AGs from Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina in suing President Biden, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, and the United States Department of Education alleging that the Biden Administration’s student loan cancellation program, announced on August 24, 2022, is illegal. With student loan balances set to be canceled in the near future, the complaint requests immediate injunctive and declaratory relief.
- The complaint, filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, alleges, among other things, that the law upon which the debt cancellation is based, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act), was limited to providing relief to individuals who suffered from an emergency like the 9/11 terrorist attacks or who must serve their country overseas in the military, and therefore it does not provide authority for the Biden Administration to implement sweeping debt cancellation.
- The complaint also alleges that mass debt cancellation, by one estimate expected to cost up to $519 billion, exceeds the Department of Education’s statutory authority under the Administrative Procedures Act.