Borrowers File Long-Shot Legal Bid To Reverse SAVE Ruling

Three days after a federal court officially killed the SAVE student loan repayment plan, a group of borrowers is asking that same court to reverse their ruling. While they have some legal arguments to make it interesting, the odds are stacked against them.

Attorney William Austin Hinkle, representing the same group of borrowers that was suing the Department of Education in another court, filed a motion for reconsideration (PDF File) on March 13, 2026. The filing argues that the court’s March 10 order vacating the SAVE Final Rule was a “manifest error of law” that should be reversed and that the only legally permissible outcome is to send the case back without permanently erasing the rule.

It’s a legally creative argument with some merit. But the practical path to success is extremely narrow.

How The SAVE Plan Was Eliminated And Why The Process Matters

The SAVE plan (formally the Saving on a Valuable Education plan) was the Biden administration’s signature income-driven repayment program. At its peak, more than 7 million borrowers were enrolled. The plan was challenged by a coalition of Republican-led states shortly after it took effect in 2023, and courts blocked key provisions while the litigation played out.

What makes this filing unusual is what happened at the end: SAVE wasn’t killed by a court ruling on the merits. It was killed by a deal.

Missouri (the lead plaintiff state) and the Trump administration’s Department of Education (which was supposed to be defending the rule) jointly agreed they both wanted it gone.

The Eighth Circuit, in a two-sentence order issued March 9, directed the district court to enter judgment “as jointly requested by the parties.” The district court complied the next day. No court ever ruled the SAVE Final Rule was actually illegal. No trial was held. No balancing of equities was conducted.

That procedural reality is the foundation of this motion.

What Arguments Are These Borrowers Making

The borrowers are arguing three legal theories, any one of which they argue would be enough to reverse the vacatur of the SAVE rule.

First, when lawmakers passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they knew the SAVE plan existed as a part of the ICR regulations, and explicitly chose to keep those income-contingent repayment plans alive through July 1, 2028.

The intervenors argue this constitutes congressional ratification. Congress amended the very statute underlying SAVE and still chose not to eliminate the plan immediately. You cannot simultaneously argue a rule exceeded congressional authority and ignore the fact that Congress just preserved that authority.

The second argument targets the mechanics of what happened. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, courts can only vacate agency rules when they make an affirmative finding that the rule is unlawful.

A settlement between two parties is not a finding of illegality. The intervenors cite a 2023 Ninth Circuit ruling involving Clean Water Act regulations (PDF File) that held courts cannot permanently extinguish a federal rule simply because both parties request it. Agreement is not adjudication on the legality of a rule.

The third argument is about a required legal test that was skipped entirely. Before vacating a major regulation, courts are supposed to weigh how serious the rule’s deficiencies are against how disruptive elimination would be. The SAVE Final Rule was 86 pages of detailed regulatory analysis built on the negotiated rulemaking process and nearly 14,000 public comments. It was eliminated in a two-sentence directive with no analysis at all. 

That failure, the motion argues, is itself reversible error.

Why This Is Still A Long Shot

The legal arguments may have some merit. The OBBBA ratification theory in particular is something that no court has addressed, and the district court itself previously noted it was “not persuaded” by attempts to ignore the law’s implications when it denied Missouri’s request for a stay of an earlier dismissal.

But the practical obstacles are going to be hard to overcome.

First, the court has to allow these borrowers to intervene – and they have not yet been granted that right. The court could decline to hear the motion entirely on that basis.

Even if it does allow the intervention, the district court that just followed the Eighth Circuit’s mandate three days ago is unlikely to reverse course based on a filing by parties who were not formally in the case. And if the district court did act, the Eighth Circuit (which directed this outcome) would almost certainly reverse it.

These borrowers could continue to appeal, but it’s unlikely that the Supreme Court would intervene – and even if it did, it likely wouldn’t happen for a significant period of time. 

The motion reads more as an attempt to build a legal record, rather than as a realistic way to revive SAVE broadly.

What’s Going To Happen Next?

It’s important to realize that, in the immediate term, nothing is changing for borrowers. While the SAVE plan is still dead, borrowers need to await actual logistical communication from the Department of Education.

This new motion likely won’t lead anywhere, but even if it does, it’s unlikely borrowers won’t notice any difference immediately as a result. 

Borrowers should continue to check their loan accounts, ensure their contact information is updated, and make decisions to leave the SAVE forbearance based on their own financial situation.

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