House votes to overturn President Biden’s student debt forgiveness and end the payment pause—what borrowers need to know

The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday aimed at blocking President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan and ending the pause on federal student loan payments and interest.

The Republican-sponsored bill passed by a vote of 218-203 with two Democrats joining the Republican majority in favor of the resolution. It’s unclear whether the bill will pass the Democrat-controlled Senate, but if it does, the White House has already vowed to veto it. 

“This resolution is an unprecedented attempt to undercut our historic economic recovery and would deprive more than 40 million hard-working Americans of much-needed student debt relief,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.

The resolution follows a Republican-led proposal last month that would have raised the debt ceiling, but blocked Biden’s student debt relief plan and changes to income-driven repayment. 

Currently, Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student debt per borrower earning less than $125,000 a year rests with the Supreme Court. The court is expected to rule by the end of June. 

Here’s where things currently stand.

Despite some hopes that the pause on student loan payments may be extended again if the Supreme Court strikes down debt forgiveness, the Biden administration has said the pause will end this summer.

“We are committed to making sure that once a decision is made that we’re going to resume payments 60 days after,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona confirmed last week at a Senate Appropriations hearing. “But no later than June 30, we’re going to begin that process.”

House Republicans aren’t the first to call for an end to the payment pause, either. In March, SoFi Bank filed a lawsuit trying to compel the federal government to resume collecting payments immediately, calling the most recent extension of the pause “unlawful on multiple grounds.”

In the brief window last fall…