President Joe Biden announced last week the cancellation of $1.2 billion in student debt for 153,000 borrowers—an average of $7,843 per borrower. The move is one of dozens he’s made since 2021 in a multi-pronged strategy to deliver on his campaign promise to “forgive a minimum of $10,000/person of federal student loans.” 

To date, Biden has approved the cancellation of $138 billion in student debt for 3.9 million borrowers —an average of $35,384 per borrower, according to the White House.

What about that Supreme Court decision?

One could be forgiven for thinking that the student debt cancellation issue was settled in June 2023 when the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s rule attempting to cancel student debt using the national emergency provisions of the HEROES Act. Had it survived the legal challenge, the move would have canceled $20,000 in student debt for borrowers originally from lower-income families and $10,000 for most others. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that around $400 billion in debt would have been canceled under the program if it had survived the lawsuit.

On the day the court released its decision, Biden announced his Plan B: to work through required regulatory channels to achieve broad-based debt cancellation using authorities granted in the Higher Education Act. Uniquely for the Higher Education Act, this involves a slow and iterative process called negotiated rulemaking, explained here. Less noticed was that the administration reiterated its commitment to a series of actions to cancel student debt in other ways. Even after the Supreme Court defeat, the White House’s message was “Debt Relief for As Many Borrowers as Possible, as Fast as Possible.” There are dozens of White House press releases relating to actions taken on student debt cancellation since last summer.