Could the POTUS cancel any amount of student debt without approval of the US Congress?

Question

Recently, Biden's Administration is approving $6.1 billion in student debt cancellation for 317,000 borrowers who attended the Art Institutes., but I haven't seen the Senate or House ever voted on this.

So, is it true that this is something decided solely by the U.S. President, no matter what amount of debt he wants to cancel for students, especially in the election year? On the other hand, I saw earlier that a proposed bill in Congress would ban mass student loan forgiveness, but that is something only happening afterwards.

I am confused. Since the United States is a democracy, I thought the reasonable process and logic should be that POTUS first needs an approval from the Congress before he could take such an important action, rather than the POTUS first does what he wants easily and if the Congress doesn't like it then they have to try very hard to block that act of POTUS. The same story and logic happened to Trump administration when they decided to raise tariffs and I didn't remember that decision needed the approval from the Congress beforehand.

Answer 1

As a legality, Biden does not have the authority to forgive student debt without authorization from Congress. As a technicality, he wants to work around that. He first tried to do so by using the HEROES Act. The Supreme court rejected that approach so he is now trying to do so by using the Higher Education Act. Some legal scholars argue that the Higher Education Act gives the Secretary of Education power to exercise his or her existing authority to cancel federal student loan debt on a broad or categorical basis.

Whether that is true or not was never argued or settled in courts. The Biden announcement of this loan forgiveness plan is careful to say “if implemented” and “if finalized as proposed” to allow for the possibility of it being struck down in court like his earlier attempts to forgive student loans without congressional approval were.

Answer 2

There's another good answer talking specifics. I'd like to address this part:

Since the United States is a democracy, I thought the reasonable process and logic should be that POTUS first needs an approval from the Congress before he could take such an important action.

Congress is the legislative branch, while the Presidency is head of the executive branch. The typical legislative MO is for Congress to pass a law instituting a program, and then put some part of the Executive branch (for example, the Department of Education) in charge of actually managing the program.

So at this point the issue becomes what authority Congress gave that part of the Executive branch when they wrote that law (or often those sets of laws). Often, by design a lot of latitude is given to the Executive. For example, the US State Department is charged by Congress with keeping a list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. There are laws covering what things a country might do to get themselves put on that list, and what the repercussions are to a country that gets put on that list. However, it is up to the US State Department who actually gets put on that list. If the Executive branch (under direction of the President) doesn't want an otherwise qualifying nation on that list, they don't go on it. Its up to executive discretion.

This is actually a very helpful part of the laws, as it makes inclusion on the list a very useful bargaining chip when the State Department (or the President's administration) is negotiating with problematic foreign nations.

So the question here isn't one of "democracy", but rather exactly what latitude Congress gave the Executive branch when they wrote the laws allowing for government-backed student loans. If Congress doesn't like the answer to that question, they are of course perfectly free to change it by passing more laws.

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As for the specific answer with student loan forgiveness, that's more of a legal matter, but thankfully @MichaelSeifert over on Law SE already has a good answer there for you. The relevant law Congress passed back in 1965 has this passage:

In carrying out the provisions of this part, the Secretary is authorized— ...
(2) to enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption;

So it sure looks like Congress likely already gave the executive branch (specifically the Secretary of Education, who answers to the POTUS but was confirmed by Congress) the power to "waive or release" student loan repayment obligations created under that program. If this Congress didn't want the SoE having that power any more, the surest way to prevent it would have been to change the legislation to take it away.

Answer 3

Several good answers, but let me just add: The Constitution and laws do not magically enforce themselves. If the people in power agree that they want to do X and they don't care that the Constitution says they can't, they can just ignore the Constitution, and it's not like fire will come down from Heaven to destroy them. For example, advocates of limited government have been pointing out for decades that the Constitution gives a list of "enumerated powers" of the Federal government, it says that the Federal government can only do the things on this list ... and there are many things the government does that are not on the list. Because the people in power agree that the government should do these things, regardless of what the Constitution says.

In this example, if the president declares that he will "forgive" student debt (i.e. make the taxpayers pay it), and Congress does not have the votes to oppose him and the courts reject any law suits trying to block him, then it will happen, whether the law and the Constitution authorize it or not.

Answer 4

So, is it true that this is something decided solely by the U.S. President, no matter what amount of debt he wants to cancel for students, especially in the election year?

Not in the slightest.

The 5th Amendment forbids, among other things, that private property "be taken for public use, without just compensation." Student loan debt is the private property of those who hold the notes on that debt and depend on its repayment for income. Therefore, the debts cannot be "forgiven" or "canceled." That option simply does not exist. What the Biden Administration proposes to do, under the rhetoric of loan forgiveness, is actually burden transfer: the debts get paid off by the federal government rather than by the individual students.

But under Article I, Section 7 of the US Constitution, all federal government spending must be authorized by bills originating specifically in the House of Representatives. As Congress has not authorized the spending of funds to pay off these loans, the authority for the Biden Administration to do so is simply not there.

It's worth noting that this is a pretty well-settled question. Last year (2023), the Supreme Court struck down unauthorized student loan forgiveness attempts in Biden v. Nebraska, finding that the Biden Administration had no authority to do so, and that the tenuous attempt they made to find such authority in a largely-unrelated piece of legislature ran afoul of the well-established Whitman v. American Trucking Assns. principle that "Congress does not hide elephants in mouse-holes."

In other words, for the Administration to take actions of such large magnitude requires explicit authorization from Congress, not clever tricks of legalese. Given that no such explicit authorization has been forthcoming in the past year, it seems all but impossible for current attempts to ever survive judicial review.

Answer 5

Question:

I am confused. Since the United States is a democracy, I thought the reasonable process and logic should be that POTUS first needs an approval from the Congress before he could take such an important action,

Pet peeve of mine. The United States is in fact not a democracy, it is in fact a Republic. In the case of student debt relief Congress actually did authorize the Dept of Education to oversee and even discharge Student loans. The Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act in 2003.

Answer 6

Building off of Jay's answer, the question is "can": The president "can" do anything he wants as long as the powers that be let him get away with it.

What are the "powers that be"?

1. The three branches taught in classrooms: The executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches. These have a long track record now of cooperation rather than the mythical "checks and balances" that are supposed to protect our freedoms.
2. An increasing number of bureaucratic middlemen. These are designed to give administrations and elected officials effective incumbency and continued influence through political machinery and momentum that far outlast any term limits, to favor special interests at public expense, and have a life of their own (see for example the Federal Reserve, a QuANGO that is founded on the principle of counterfeiting the securities of the United States of America).
3. The people themselves. By design per the Constitution, the people have power to nullify all unconstitutional acts through jury trials (governments can't fine you a cent without the assent of a jury under the Constitution), and by upholding their oaths of office and of citizenship. Officers have both a right and a duty to refuse to comply with all unconstitutional orders: It is in their oath of office. Citizens do as well: It is in our oath of citizenship. Given the choice between the combined forces of the President of the United States, Congress, and the courts against you, the Constitution always has the superior authority, and the people are the primary executors of it. Hence it is primarily the bureaucratic middlemen, funded by unconstitutional taxes, that are likely to ensure that an edict is enforced by threats of imprisonment, fines or other punishments. Navigating such edicts peacefully poses a primary challenge for law-abiding citizens, but the Constitution guarantees a jury trial in all disputes between a government and her citizens.

Of course, if we contest such taxes, we are likely to be charged in courts for some form of tax evasion. The armed fundraising mercenaries in the name of the public good will continue until the Federal Reserve is disbanded and income tax and all other direct taxes are abolished, save for the original census tax and the four indirect taxes (all basically tantamount to tariffs) allowed under the Constitution--because it is the unconstitutional forms of taxation that are funding the army of middlemen who typically enforce such edicts. The process of strangling freedom is an indelicate dance of determining just how much tyranny people are willing to tolerate or even blindly promote. Of course all tyrants are cowards and they can be hushed, stymied and slowed by the united voice of conscientious people.

In short, whether or not he gets away with it is likely at least in part a function of how you choose to spend your money and your time, how much you educate yourself in constitutional matters, and how courageously and judiciously you pursue what is right in such matters, seeking the greatest alliance with the greatest number of your peers on the things that matter most. Since our freedoms have been lost iteratively in process of time, it will require prolonged effort and iteration to get them back. A sure way to fail is to demand all things be restored at once. On the other hand, what is necessary is at first to slow and stop such encroachments, and ultimately reverse them.