Six GOP-led states sue to block Biden administration’s student loan debt forgiveness plan

President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions in federal student loan debt has come up against a legal roadblock from conservative states.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in St. Louis, is the second known legal challenge for Biden this week.

Biden used executive authority to forgive many student loans, under certain circumstances and said the cost of a college education has become exorbitant.

“That ticket has become too expensive for too many Americans. The burden is so heavy that even if you graduate, you might not have the ticket that graduating college once offered,” Biden said.

The lawsuit is being led by Arkansas, and Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. South Carolina has also joined.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who had said she was ready to challenge the Biden administration’s plan to cancel student loan debt, in a Thursday press conference said it was a disgrace that “the president is trying to bail out adult college students who voluntarily took out these loans.”

In the lawsuit, the 6 states said that Biden’s cancellation plan is “not remotely tailored to address the effects of the pandemic on federal student loan borrowers,” as required by the 2003 federal law that the administration has used as the basis for the forgiveness.

The states also noted that Biden, during an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” this month, declared the COVID-19 pandemic over, yet is still using the pandemic to justify putting in place a large-scale debt-relief plan.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said during a campaign event in Park City that the forgiveness plan “fundamentally unfair to families who stepped up and paid off their own debts.”

“There is a cost to money and signing a contract to borrow money includes a cost of interest for carrying the debt,” Schmidt said.

“There are a lot of small businesses that I’m sure would like to have their debt paid off by somebody else with no interest, but it’s not the way financial markets work,” Schmidt went on to say.