Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's sweeping student loan forgiveness plan, the White House announced a more limited debt relief plan that will go forward as the administration seeks to retool and revive the initial broader policy.

The plan announced July 14 by the White House would affect a narrower category of borrowers — those the administration says have suffered from inaccurate accounting of their past payments. This plan would forgive $39 billion in debts accumulated by some 804,000 borrowers, the administration said. By contrast, the plan the justices struck down would have eliminated $400 billion in student loans for tens of millions of borrowers.

"I have long said that college should be a ticket to the middle class — not a burden that weighs down on families for decades," Biden said in a statement. "My administration is delivering on that commitment."

As a presidential candidate, Biden promised to forgive undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt for borrowers earning up to $125,000. 

He announced a broad plan in August that would waive $10,000 of federal student loan debt for people earning less than $125,000 or couples earning less than $250,000. The plan extended an additional $10,000 in relief to those who met the earning requirements and had received federal Pell Grants, which are awarded to low-income Americans.

But opponents filed suit to block this effort, and on June 30, a 6-3 Supreme Court majority struck down Biden's plan for broad relief. The court said Biden's justification for the move — a post-9/11 law called the HEROES Act — provided an insufficient legal basis.

Biden said he would pursue a new approach for enacting the more sweeping forgiveness he'd promised, based on provisions of the Higher Education Act that allows the Education Department to "compromise, waive or release loans under certain circumstances."

In the interim, Biden proposed the more limited plan to aid borrowers whose payment records had been misrecorded to their detriment. These included mistakes related to uncounted payments and incomplete or misleading guidance about how to comply with loan procedures.

The Education Department said the loan forgiveness plan "would ensure all borrowers have an accurate count of the number of monthly payments that qualify toward forgiveness under income-driven repayment" plans.

Accounting mistakes for these plans and questionable guidance by servicers meant that qualifying payments by borrowers were not recorded, lengthening the time their loans would need to be paid off. 

"The Biden administration has retroactively counted the number of qualifying payments, making some adjustments when it is not possible to precisely count the number of qualifying payments," said Mark Kantrowitz, an expert on student debt and author of the book "How to Appeal for More College Financial Aid." The administration is also making other adjustments, he said, such as those affecting the accounting of partial and late payments.

It's possible this more limited plan could be blocked in court, but Kantrowitz said "such a lawsuit is unlikely to be successful, since Congress previously authorized this forgiveness."

Even though Biden's new plan was announced soon after the Supreme Court decision, the two efforts actually run in parallel. Student loan experts said they don't expect the new, narrow plan to face the same types of legal hurdles that Biden's broad forgiveness plan did.

The new plan follows in the footsteps of more targeted loan forgiveness successfully pursued in the past by the Biden administration, including $45 billion in forgiveness to 653,800 public servants through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program; $5 billion for 491,000 borrowers who have a permanent disability, and $22 billion for about 1.3 million borrowers who were cheated by their schools or saw their schools close.

The new proposal "is really part of that group of policies," said Sarah Sattelmeyer, project director for education, opportunity, and mobility at New America, a Washington, D.C.,-based think tank.

Biden's original, more sweeping plan has been rejected by the courts, but he's pledged to try again with a new approach. Meanwhile, continued progress on more targeted loan relief efforts, including the one for borrowers whose qualifying payments were missed, move this promise to In the Works.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's plan to waive student loan debt for millions of Americans. 

In a decision released June 30, a 6-3 majority said the Biden administration's justification for offering debt relief for qualified borrowers — a post-9/11 law called the HEROES Act — provided an insufficient legal basis for offering student loan relief.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said the administration "asserts that the HEROES Act grants him the authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan principal. It does not. We hold today that the Act allows the Secretary (of Education) to 'waive or modify' existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, not to rewrite that statute from the ground up."

As a presidential candidate, Biden had promised to forgive undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt for borrowers earning up to $125,000. Student loan repayments have been repeatedly paused since March 2020, when the U.S. declared a state of emergency due to the coronavirus. The current pause is set to expire in October, though the StudentAid.gov website said following the ruling that it is "reviewing the court's decision to determine next steps."

After months of debating how to address student loan debt, Biden announced Aug. 24, 2022, that he would waive $10,000 of federal student loan debt for individuals earning less than $125,000 or couples earning less than $250,000. The plan extended an additional $10,000 in relief to those who met the earning requirements and had received Federal Pell Grants, which are awarded to low-income Americans.

In a statement after the ruling, Biden called the court's decision "wrong," and hours after the decision was released, he laid out a "new path" to offer relief "to as many borrowers as possible, as quickly as possible."

Biden's new approach banks on the justices reacting more favorably to a policy based on provisions of the Higher Education Act than they did to arguments based on the HEROES Act. The White House argues that language in the Higher Education Act allows the Education Department to "compromise, waive or release loans under certain circumstances."

"This new path is legally sound," Biden said from the White House. "It's going to take longer. And in my view, it's the best path that remains."

President Joe Biden speaks from the White House on June 30, 2023, after its student loan debt relief plan was struck down by the Supreme Court. (AP)

Biden's original plan faced two legal challenges at the Supreme Court. One suit, involving individual plaintiffs, was rejected by the justices in a unanimous decision, citing the plaintiffs' lack of standing — that is, the ability to show they had been harmed.

The second lawsuit, by a group of states opposed to the plan, was the one the justices ruled on, effectively blocking Biden's plan.

As of March 31, 2023, there were 43.6 million federal student loan borrowers, said Mark Kantrowitz, an expert on student debt and author of the book How to Appeal for More College Financial Aid. 

One silver lining for the administration is that the end of the debt relief plan "will reduce the 2023 deficit by about $400 billion," according to the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget.

In the meantime, Biden announced a temporary, 12-month "ramp" repayment program to give borrowers "a chance to get back up and running." Under that plan, the Education Department will refrain for 12 months from referring borrowers to credit agencies if they miss payments, though interest will continue accruing.

It's unclear whether the Supreme Court would back Biden's retooled plan to use the Higher Education Act provisions. It took almost a year between the time Biden announced his plan based on the HEROES Act and the Supreme Court's rejection of it. 

Alternately, Biden could ask Congress to specifically authorize student debt relief. However, the likelihood of such a bill passing, especially given the current Republican-held House, is considered low, and Biden has not put significant muscle toward such an effort since he's been president.

If Biden's new tack finds greater success in the future, we'll reconsider our rating. For now, though, getting his plan struck down by the Supreme Court counts as a Promise Broken.

PolitiFact Staff Writer Amy Sherman contributed to this report.

RELATED: Fact-checking statistics about Biden's student loan forgiveness plan

RELATED: Biden Promise Tracker 

President Joe Biden's plan to waive student loan debt for people making less than $125,000 or families earning less than $250,000 annually has faced an uphill battle since his Aug. 24 announcement. 

The Justice Department has said that Biden's action is allowable under a 2003 law, known as the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act, which authorizes the executive branch to overhaul student loan programs. Enacted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the HEROES Act gave the president the right to cancel student debt during a national emergency.

But several legal challenges have stalled Biden's plan.

Frank Garrison is an attorney who borrowed money to finance his education and works for Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative public interest law firm in California. He sued the Biden administration Sept. 27 alleging that the executive branch does not have the authority to create a new forgiveness policy and is overreaching Congress' power to make the laws.

A federal judge denied the motion for lack of standing. The judge said that because the federal program is not compulsory, it will not harm Garrison and the other plaintiff in the lawsuit.

In a separate lawsuit filed Sept. 29 in U.S. District Court, Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich alleged that the Biden administration's use of the HEROES Act to cancel student debt is unconstitutional and unjustified. The case is ongoing.

Six states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina — also filed a joint lawsuit Sept. 29 asking a court to block the Biden administration's loan forgiveness program immediately.

The complaint said that Missouri's state-run student loan servicer could lose revenue if borrowers consolidate their loans under the Federal Family Education Loan program, among other harms to other states. A federal judge in Missouri dismissed the case for lack of standing, but the states appealed. The 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals approved the states' request Oct. 24 for an emergency stay to block the program, pending appeal.

The Biden administration is responding to several other lawsuits to block the student debt cancellation; those additional challenges also argue that his move is unconstitutional and violates federal procedures by denying borrowers the opportunity to submit public comment.

On Nov. 10, District Judge Mark T. Pittman in Texas called Biden's plan a "complete usurpation" of congressional authority by the executive branch and rejected the Biden administration's arguments that it has authority to act under the HEROES Act. Pittman temporarily halted the program.

The Justice Department appealed Pittman's ruling.

It also issued an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court Nov. 18, asking the high court to reverse the nationwide injunction or to take up the case and set an expedited briefing schedule for the court's current term.

That 40-page filing by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar marks the third time in less than a month that the justices have been asked to intervene in disputes over the program.

In response to the legal challenges, the Department of Education has scaled back the debt relief program.

The administration previously said borrowers with privately owned federal student loans, including Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) and Perkins Loans, could consolidate their loans into federal Direct Loans made directly by the Department of Education. It said this would qualify those borrowers for relief under Biden's cancellation program, giving people a path to receive up to $10,000 or $20,000 of loan forgiveness.

That changed Sept. 29, when the administration said borrowers with federal student loans not held by the Department of Education "cannot obtain one-time debt relief by consolidating those loans into Direct Loans," according to the department's website.

The Biden administration is accepting and reviewing debt relief applications amid the ongoing lawsuits. The White House said Nov. 3 that close to 26 million people had applied to be considered for debt-relief. About 16 million people have been approved for loan cancellation, but the administration can't forgive the debt until legal challenges are resolved.

The Department of Education Nov. 22 extended a pause on student loan payments that were set to resume Jan. 1. Monthly student loan payments are scheduled to restart 60 days after litigation is resolved or the administration is able to implement debt relief, whichever comes first. If courts have not weighed in by June 30, monthly payments will resume 60 days after June 30, the department said.

Several lawsuits have been filed in courts across the country, halting Biden's plan to forgive student debt for millions of borrowers. We'll continue to monitor this pledge, but for now, we rate it Stalled.

After months of debating how to address student loan debt, President Joe Biden announced on Aug. 24 that he was ordering that $10,000 of student loan debt be waived for individuals earning less than $125,000 or couples earning less than $250,000. He also ordered an additional $10,000 to be waived for those who meet those earning requirements and had received Pell Grants, which are for low-income Americans.

This announcement advanced one of his prominent campaign promises from 2020.

While seeking office, Biden promised full cancellation for all student debt, not just $10,000 or $20,000.

"I propose to forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities for debt-holders earning up to $125,000, with appropriate phase-outs to avoid a cliff," Biden wrote.

On other occasions, Biden said a "minimum" of $10,000, and other Democratic primary candidates such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., often urged more aggressive forgiveness plans than Biden did. However, the promise we chose to track after Biden won was for full forgiveness, so we will rate that one here.

The White House said that the new policy would benefit up to 43 million borrowers and cancel the full balance for about 20 million borrowers. The White House cited Education Department estimates that nearly 90% of relief dollars will go to those earning less than $75,000 a year.

Biden also announced that the government will cap the monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower's discretionary income, half of the current level.

Biden promised during the campaign that loan forgiveness "would also apply to individuals holding federal student loans for tuition from private HBCUs and MSIs." 

The White House fact sheet released on Aug. 24 doesn't specifically cite provisions that directly affect historically Black colleges and universities or minority serving institutions. But the plan says the Pell Grant provision should reduce racial disparities in wealth. "Black borrowers are twice as likely to have received Pell Grants compared to their white peers," the fact sheet says. 

Finally, Biden said he would be phasing out a pandemic-era pause on federal student loan repayments. It will be extended one final time, with payments resuming in January 2023.

"All this means people can finally start crawling out of that mountain of debt," Biden said. "When this happens, the whole economy is better off."

The decision drew immediate criticism from some on the left, who had hoped to see more debt wiped away, and many on the right, who framed the policy as one that shoveled money from blue-collar workers to college graduates.

The policy also attracted criticism from centrists, including many economists, who said it is poorly timed because it will increase inflationary pressures amid the country's highest inflation levels in 40 years.

During his announcement, Biden said that the plan would have no " meaningful effect on inflation."

However, Jason Furman, a Harvard University economist and top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, was unsparing on Twitter.

"Pouring roughly half (a) trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless," Furman tweeted, adding a number of "other highly problematic impacts, including encouraging higher tuition in the future, encouraging more borrowing, creating expectations of future debt forgiveness, and more."

The Penn-Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania estimated that a policy of $10,000 forgiveness under a $125,000 individual income limit would cost the federal government $300 billion, and that doesn't include the additional forgiveness for Pell Grant recipients that Biden announced in the final plan.

The plan "could add twice as much to the deficit as was just saved from the Inflation Reduction Act, completely eliminating any deficit reduction and then some," Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement.

Penn-Wharton researchers also offered a contrary assessment of which borrowers would benefit, concluding that between 69% and 73% of the debt forgiven (not including the Pell Grant add-ons) would accrue to households in the top 60% of the income distribution.

Biden and his advisers had been debating what to do on student loans since he became president. 

Until now, he had extended the payment pause, which had begun as a pandemic measure under President Donald Trump. Biden also accelerated the use of existing student-debt forgiveness programs for narrower groups: people with permanent disabilities, those who attended schools that defrauded them or have since shut their doors, and those who have worked in public-service jobs for 10 years and have paid down their loans steadily since then.

Biden also acted despite concerns that only Congress could initiate debt forgiveness. "The president can't do it," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in July. "That's not even a discussion."

During his Aug. 24 announcement, Biden said he was "using authority granted by Congress" to order the new policy.

Lanae Erickson, who heads social policy at the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, told the Washington Post that the decision will likely be challenged in the courts.

While the debt cancellation Biden has ordered doesn't cancel 100% of student debt, it's a substantial step. If the courts block his effort, we'll revisit this promise. But for now, this earns a Compromise.

As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised to forgive undergraduate student debt for people earning up to $125,000.

In office, Biden has paused student loan payments during the coronavirus pandemic, and he has accelerated loan forgiveness under more limited programs. But he has not pursued across-the-board loan forgiveness, either through legislation in Congress or by the less legally certain course of executive action.

Biden extended an existing pause on student loan payments prompted by the pandemic several times, most recently through May 1, 2022. This means that people with student loan balances don't have to make payments. However, the loans are not forgiven, either in whole or in part.

The administration has accelerated the use of existing student-debt forgiveness programs. 

These include a program to cancel student debts for people with permanent disabilities; for those who attended schools that defrauded them or have since shut their doors; and those that have worked in public-service jobs for 10 years and have paid down their loans steadily since then.

The Education Department estimated that it has discharged or is working to discharge about $12.7 billion in student debt for more than 638,000 borrowers, according to NPR. 

That's not insignificant, but it's a small fraction of the $1.6 trillion in federal student loans outstanding and the 46 million Americans who hold them.

The continuation of the pandemic pause has bought Biden some time before he has to decide on whether to pursue across-the-board student loan forgiveness. However, Biden's actions so far do not suggest that this proposal is high on his agenda. 

He has declined to include a broad-based student loan forgiveness in the major legislative vehicle for safety-net proposals, the Build Back Better bill, which has been passed by the House and is awaiting action in the Senate.

Republican opposition would make it a hard sell in Congress. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the second-ranking Republican in the chamber, called large-scale loan forgiveness "incredibly, fundamentally unfair" to those who already repaid their debts.

Some forgiveness advocates have urged Biden to use executive action as a way to work around opposition in Congress. But even Democratic officials have expressed doubts about this course.

"The president can't do it," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in July. "That's not even a discussion."

Biden himself echoed that in a February 2021 town hall, when he said he was doubtful that an executive action would pass legal muster. "I don't think I have the authority," Biden said.

All in all, Biden has "cancelled debt for those who already should have had it under existing policies, but has yet to create policies to expand debt cancellation to a broad level," said Jalil Mustaffa Bishop, an assistant professor in Villanova University who has studied the issue.

There's still time for Biden to start pursuing broad-based student-loan forgiveness, but his actions so far do not suggest he will. We rate the promise Stalled.