program, a ruling that will impact millions of people, one of the court s most influential cases this term with implications beyond the student loan issue. the plaintiffs which include six republican-led states, two borrowers who do not qualify for this program, are challenging the legality of the plan which would cancel up to $20,000 in debt for some borrowers. so just to give you an idea of the scope here, outstanding student loan debt in this country is more than $1.7 trillion. the vast majority of that, we re talking more than 90%, is from federal student loans and those are the ones that would be eligible for some forgiveness under biden s plan. so far 16 million borrowers had been approved for that relief. when the legal challenges put the plan on hold, officials estimate the program could cost some $400 billion. education secretary miguel cardona speaking with cnn this morning talked about why the administration is so focused on this and why the administration believ
we re seeing a lot more of these lawsuits where texas, for example, has filed almost 30 lawsuits challenging biden administration policies, where red states challenge blue president policies and blue states challenge red president policies. the supreme court has never actually blessed that. indeed, 100 years ago the court said we don t usually want states to be the lead plaintiffs because otherwise that will mean every single policy gets challenged in court right away. that s not the state s job. so one of the things really swirling around these cases today is whether the conservative justices because of their skepticism of this program are actually going to be inclined to allow states like nebraska, missouri, to lead challenges to this kind of policy. and, jim, if they do, it s only a matter of time before we will see an explosion in states from across the political spectrum, attorneys general from across the political spectrum, seeing it as their job.