- Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent letters to nearly 20 advocacy groups regarding student-debt relief.
- She wants to know how the lawsuits blocking the relief are affecting the groups' members.
Elizabeth Warren wants to know how conservative efforts to block student-loan forgiveness are affecting you.
In a series of letters Massachusetts Sen. Warren sent out on Wednesday, she asked nearly 20 advocacy groups — including the NAACP, the Student Borrower Protection Center, and The Debt Collective — how the efforts to block President Joe Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers are impacting the groups' members.
After Biden announced the relief at the end of August, two conservative-backed lawsuits successfully paused the implementation of the policy. One of the lawsuits was filed by six Republican-led states who argued the relief would hurt their states' tax revenues, along with that of student-loan company MOHELA, and the other lawsuit was filed by two student-loan borrowers who did not qualify for the full $20,000 amount of relief.
The cases are now headed to the Supreme Court on February 28. Warren wrote in the letters, first viewed by Insider, that "if not for the courts and Republican efforts, roughly 16 million Americans could have been approved and seen up to $20,000 in student debt cancelled. Instead, these partisan and legally tenuous attempts to block the President's authority have left these borrowers in limbo."
"Without cancellation, millions of Americans' monthly costs could rise dramatically once student loan payments resume," she added.
Warren is asking each of the groups to tell her, by January 31, what student-loan forgiveness would mean for their members, if the attempts to block student-debt relief have affected members' abilities to financially plan, what impact blocking the relief would have on the members, and how the government can protect and expand relief to those "experiencing financial hardship" due to student debt.
Insider has previously spoken to a number of borrowers who have expressed confusion, uncertainty, and anger with the stalled debt relief. Guilherme Lopes, a first-generation borrower with $146,000 in student debt, said that the legal challenges to the relief are "not the American dream that we were promised coming over."
"I definitely think it affects the mental health," Lopes said. "It's more of the unknown, the uncertainty, it just feels like a really sick game."
The uncertainty is certainly permeating as borrowers head into the new year. Not only is the Supreme Court's ultimate decision unknown — it's also unclear when student-loan payments will resume. The Education Department announced an extension of the student-loan payments pause 60 days after June 30 or 60 days after the lawsuits are resolved, whichever happens first, and it looks like even if the Supreme Court strikes down relief, borrowers will still be thrown back into repayment this year.
As these legal battles have progressed, many Republican lawmakers have expressed support for the lawsuits and argued that debt relief is unfair and using the HEROES Act of 2003, which gives the Education Secretary the ability to waive or modify student-loan balances in connection with a national emergency, is an overreach of authority.
But Biden continues to express confidence in the plans legality, and that it will prevail in court.
"My administration is making the case to the Supreme Court, and I'm confident — I'm confident in the legal authority to carry out our plan," Biden said during remarks on Monday, adding that "on this one and so much more, I have your back."