The Supreme Court on Friday rejected President Biden’s plan to forgive millions of student loans because the nation’s president lacked the legal authority to waive more than $400 billion he owed the government.

The Biden administration exercised its right to cancel the loans as part of its emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic and under a 2003 law called the HEROES Act, which was passed at the time of the war in Iraq.

With a 6-to-3 vote in Biden vs. Nebraska court conservatives said only Congress could authorize such a large-scale cancellation of government loans, and it had not.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority: “The HEROES Act permits the Secretary to override or amend existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, but does not permit the Secretary to rewrite that statute to the extent that $430 billion in student loan principal be canceled.

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Justice Elena Kagan disagreed: “In every way the court today surpasses its proper, limited role in the governance of our nation….. The result here is that the court is substituting itself for Congress and the executive in making national policy. on student loan forgiveness.”

The heavy burden of student loans had become a major problem for Democrats.

As a candidate, Biden pledged to forgive up to $10,000 in student loans for many young borrowers in 2020, but he did not seek legislation from Congress when it was under Democratic control.

Last year, with the end of the pandemic in sight, he joined Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in announcing that as part of its COVID-19 response, the government would forgive $10,000 of the most outstanding student loans and up to $20,000 for those who came from low-income families.

About 26 million borrowers have applied for assistance.

But the legal status of the policy remained questionable. The HEROES Act of 2003 said the education department could “waive or amend” any provision of publicly funded student loans for any borrower affected by “a war or other military operation or national emergency.”

Lawmakers said their goal was to provide temporary assistance to those called up to serve in Iraq and to ensure they were not “worse off financially” because of their service.

In March 2020, President Trump declared a national emergency in response to COVID-19, and his administration suspended required repayments and accrued interest on outstanding student loans. These suspensions have remained in place and have cost the government more than $100 billion.

Biden decided to move on, saying the cost of higher education had skyrocketed and left many students with crushing debt. The White House said its plan to cancel some or all of the millions of loans would “provide more breathing room for America’s working families as they continue to recover from the stresses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”

But lawyers from Nebraska and five other Republican-led states sued, arguing that the president was “unlawfully invoking the

COVID

-19 pandemic to assert power Congress could not have imagined.”

In defense of the plan, the administration’s lawyers said that Congress had indeed authorized the Department of Education to “waive or amend” any provision of the student aid programs. They also argued that the states had no legal standing because they were not harmed by the president’s decision to forgive loans.

But a federal appeals court in St. Louis sided with the Republican-led states and blocked implementation of the loan cancellation program. In December, the Supreme Court refused to overturn that order and agreed to hear the administration’s appeal in late February.

Led by Roberts

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the court’s conservatives said they were deeply skeptical of the idea that the 2003 law or the pandemic gave the government the power to wipe out millions of loans.