NCLC wrote and submitted this amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Missouri v. Biden. In this case, Missouri and several other states have challenged the U.S. Department of Education’s 2023 rules governing income-driven repayment, including the SAVE plan.
This amicus brief offers NCLC’s student loan law expertise to shed light on the question of whether the Higher Education Act authorizes the Secretary of Education to promulgate rules cancelling any remaining balance on a federal student loan upon completion of an income contingent repayment term. The brief lays out the legislative and regulatory history of income contingent repayment and situates the statutory text within the context of the laws and regulations governing student loan repayment and default.
The brief demonstrates that the legislative and regulatory history, plain language, and broader statutory scheme all reflect and reinforce that the relevant statutory language provides that a borrower may satisfy their repayment obligation by making their required payments under the income contingent plan for a set number of years, even if those payments do not repay the loan in full, and authorizes the Secretary of Education to cancel any remaining balance at the completion of the plan term. This understanding of the law has been consistent since Congress first authorized income contingent repayment more than 30 years ago and there is no basis to depart from it now.