The America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) Constitutional Litigation Partnership and Higher Education Reform Initiative announced the filing of an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court. The brief supports the lower court decisions that found the Biden Administration’s $400 billion student loan cancellation program unlawful. The New York Times has called this program “one of the most sweeping spending decisions ever initiated by a president without a specific congressional vote,” and without that congressional authority, AFPI’s brief argues, the Biden Administration's student loan wealth transfer is unconstitutional and cannot stand.

“Wiping away over $400 billion in student loan debt under the guise of helping our Nation recover from COVID-19 is not only unwise policy, but it is unlawful,” said Jessica Hart Steinmann, General Counsel of the America First Policy Institute. “Congress, not the Executive Branch, has the authority to decide how to address such an issue of vast national economic and political significance. The HEROES Act, which the Secretary of Education relies on, was not a congressional delegation of this authority to the Department of Education, and in no way authorizes such an unchecked and arbitrary action.”

Relying upon the research from its Higher Education Reform Initiative, AFPI’s amicus brief argues that, rather than alleviate the student loan crisis; the Biden student loan forgiveness plan will worsen it. Students will be incentivized to incur more debt, expecting future bailouts. At the same time, that new funding will cause colleges and universities to spend lavishly on extravagant buildings and student centers that serve no scholarly objective and to hire even more college administrators who increasingly view their role as enforcers of left-wing ideological purity. 

“The Biden Administration’s borrower bailout is not just about redistributing tax payments from hard-working Americans to the college-educated; it will open the floodgates to more climbing walls, lazy rivers, and spiraling woke bureaucracies that dominate college campuses,” said Jonathan Pidluzny, Ph.D., Director of the America First Policy Institute’s Higher Education Reform Initiative. “No administration should be allowed to simply invent a half-trillion-dollar program without Congress approving it.”

The brief concludes that Congress is the branch of government with the constitutional authority to transfer $430 billion in loan debt incurred by college-educated professionals to American taxpayers, including those who did not attend college or previously paid off their student loans.

Read AFPI’s amicus brief here.

###

About the America First Policy Institute:

AFPI is a 501(C)(3) non-profit, non-partisan research institute focused on advancing policies that put the American people first. AFPI is led by senior leaders from the Trump Administration: Linda McMahon, Chair of the Board and former Administrator of the Small Business Administration; Larry Kudlow, Vice-Chair, former Director of the National Economic Council; and Brooke Rollins, President and CEO, and former Director of the Domestic Policy Council and Chief White House Strategist. Since its inception in 2021, the America First Policy Institute team proudly includes nine former Cabinet-level officials, three former Governors, and nearly fifty former Senior White House and Administration officials. More information about AFPI and its 21 research centers can be found at www.americafirstpolicy.com.