(AURN News) — The student loan crisis facing millions of Americans is about to get worse. The Department of Education announced it is ending a program created under President Joe Biden that was designed to help borrowers struggling to repay their student loans.
The Biden administration introduced the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan to provide student loan debt cancellation and more affordable repayment options. The Trump administration, however, says the program was misleading and illegal.
“Without congressional authorization, the Biden Administration misled millions of borrowers into the illegal SAVE Plan with false promises of artificially low monthly payments – oftentimes as low as $0 – and a short timeline to student loan ‘forgiveness.’ The SAVE Plan would have cost taxpayers, many of whom did not attend college or already repaid their student loans, more than $342 billion over ten years,” an official statement from the Department of Education said.
The move comes as part of a settlement after several Republican-led states sued over former President Biden’s attempt to cancel student loan debt. The lawsuit, filed in April 2024, was brought by attorneys general in several states, including Missouri, Oklahoma, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Arkansas and Ohio.
Republicans opposed to mass student loan debt cancellation say broad relief should not be allowed.
“Unilaterally saddling taxpayers with someone else’s Ivy League debt ignored congressional authority and was clearly unlawful. We appreciate President Trump’s real, long-term solutions instead of illegal student loan schemes,” Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said.
In a court filing this week, data provided by the Department of Education centered on a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Teachers, showed that only 170 people had their debts canceled in November. Another 802,730 applications remain pending.
According to the Education Data Initiative, Black and African American college graduates owe about $25,000 more in student loan debt than white graduates, and four years after graduation they owe about 188% as much as their white counterparts.
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