How Many Student Loan Borrowers Live In States Fighting Biden’s SAVE Plan

If you have student loans and live in one of these states, you may be among millions of borrowers whose state government may be responsible for all the uncertainty around the Saving for a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan.

More than a third or 2.4 million federal student loan borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan live in one of the 18 states suing to block the income-driven repayment plan. These lawsuits have resulted in uncertainty for the 6.9 million borrowers nationwide who are enrolled in the plan.

That’s according to a recent Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) report, which analyzed data from the Department of Education, the Census Bureau, and the New York Fed. The data was compiled before the White House’s most recent round of relief, which discharged $4.23 billion for 150,000 borrowers on Monday.

How Did We Get Here?

Borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan have been in limbo since July. Two lawsuits, initially filed by Kansas and Missouri, blocked President Joe Biden’s efforts to offer cheaper payments and easier forgiveness to federal student loan borrowers.

These cases have gone through federal courts, and the back-and-forth required the Department of Education to put borrowers in the plan into forbearance until the lawsuit is resolved. 

Many borrowers are worried that the incoming Trump administration will completely abandon the plan in court and that they will not receive the more generous payments or forgiveness Biden had promised.

Kansas Case

A coalition of 11 states led by Kansas filed a lawsuit to prevent widespread forgiveness under the SAVE plan. The states claim that the president doesn’t have the authority to authorize that much of an expenditure without congressional approval.

The judge removed eight of 11 states involved in the lawsuit, including Kansas, saying they had no standing. Kansas has 60,000 borrowers enrolled in the SAVE plan.

This lawsuit is now led by Alaska, which has 11,000 SAVE plan borrowers in its state. Additionally, Texas and South Carolina are still involved in the suit.

Missouri Case

Missouri has 136,700 SAVE plan borrowers and still leads its lawsuit with six other states. The district court ruled that Missouri had standing due to the “irreparable harm” the SAVE plan would have on Missouri’s state-affiliated loan servicer, MOHELA.

The other six states—Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio, and Oklahoma—proved they have standing and are still involved in the lawsuits. The district court ruled these states had merit in their claim that loan forgiveness is not authorized under the law.