WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court today rebuked the Biden administration’s claim that it could cancel potentially over half a trillion dollars in student loan debt using emergency powers.

Heritage Foundation legal fellow Jack Fitzhenry and Lindsey Burke, director of Heritage’s Center for Education Policy, released the following statement on the ruling:

“The Supreme Court justices halted President Biden’s abuse of executive authority by holding that his plan to cancel student loan debt for 40 million borrowers was unlawful. They rightly found that this was an issue for Congress, not the administrative bureaucracy, to decide.

“The astronomical cost to American taxpayers of this ill-conceived program was only surpassed by its unfairness—since it would have punished millions of Americans who dutifully paid off their student loans as well as those who never took out loans in the first place.

“If we want to help students deal with the increasing cost of getting a degree, giving a bailout to the very colleges and universities that hike prices is not the answer. Breaking up the monopoly of college accreditors and offering students more higher education options, while simultaneously cutting off the open spigot of federal higher education subsidies, is a start. Ultimately, students should be equipped with the knowledge and certainty that the student loans they take out can be repaid in future employment.”