White House Under Pressure to Develop a ‘Plan B’ on Student Debt

The Biden administration is under pressure from Capitol Hill lawmakers and student debt advocates to develop contingency plans to cancel billions of dollars in student debt and to move forward quickly if the Supreme Court strikes down the administration’s initial executive action.

One alternative would involve swapping out the current legal rationale for a new one, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

When President Joe Biden announced a sweeping package of student-debt relief in August, the administration leaned on a 2003 law, called the Heroes Act, for legal authority, arguing it could cancel as many as 40 million ...