A student-loan company that services millions of borrowers played a big role in defeating Biden's debt cancellation plan

• The Supreme Court struck down Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan by a 6-3 vote.
• The majority said the six GOP-led states had standing to involve student-loan company MOHELA in its lawsuit against the plan.

The Supreme Court just struck down President Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan. A student-loan company played a central role in that decision.

By a vote of 6-3, the high court ruled on Friday that Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers is unconstitutional, and cannot move forward. The decision came in two separate rulings — the court's majority threw out one of the cases, US Department of Education v. Brown, because the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the case.

However, the second case — Biden v. Nebraska — succeeded in blocking the president's plan. The case was brought on by six Republican-led states who argued that the debt relief would hurt their states' tax revenues, and the revenue of student-loan company MOHELA, which is based in Missouri where the lawsuit was filed.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that "the plan's harm to MOHELA is also a harm to Missouri."

"By law and function, MOHELA is an instrumentality of Missouri: It was created by the State to further a public purpose, is governed by state officials and state appointees, reports to the State, and may be dissolved by the State," Roberts wrote. "The Secretary's plan will cut MOHELA's revenues, impairing its efforts to aid Missouri college students. This acknowledged harm to MOHELA in the performance of its public function is necessarily a direct injury to Missouri itself."

MOHELA's involvement in the case has been controversial since the lawsuit was filed late last year. Following questions from Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, who requested information on the extent to which MOHELA was involved in the case, the student-loan company denied playing any role in filing the lawsuit. Newly released internal emails obtained by advocacy group the Student Borrower Protection Center also revealed employees at the company were confused about being named in the lawsuit.

"Just out of curiosity, is MOHELA apart of the lawsuit going on to prevent the loan forgiveness? Are we the bad guys?" one employee wrote in a September email.

Even conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared skeptical of the states' standing to involve MOHELA in the case during oral arguments in February. At the time, she asked the lawyer representing the states: "Why didn't the state just make MOHELA come then?" she asked. "If MOHELA is an arm of the state, why didn't you just strong-arm MOHELA and say, 'You've got to pursue this suit'?"

Still, she ultimately sided with the majority in deciding the interest of MOHELA is the interest of the state. Liberal Justice Elana Kagan, however, blasted MOHELA's involvement in the case in her dissent.

"The most that can be said of the theory the majority selects, proffered solely by Missouri, is that it is less risible than the others," Kagan wrote. "It still contravenes a bedrock principle of standing law—that a plaintiff cannot ride on someone else's injury. Missouri is doing just that in relying on injuries to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA), a legally and financially independent public corporation. And that means the Court, by deciding this case, exercises authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution."

The majority didn't see it that way — and Biden's broad student-debt relief plan is effectively blocked. There are still alternate routes the president can pursue to get relief to millions of borrowers, like the Higher Education Act of 1965, but it's unclear what the next steps are. Still, many Democratic lawmakers have made clear that the road cannot end here.

"It is very important to note this SCOTUS ruling does NOT remove Biden's ability to pursue student loan forgiveness," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. "The Biden Admin can use the HEA (Higher Ed Act) - our position from the start - to continue loan forgiveness before payments resume. They should do so ASAP."