REVEALED: The 18 states suing the Biden administration over bid to cancel BILLIONS in student debt... as president pushes latest bid despite legal concerns

Eighteen Republican led states are attempting to block President Biden's student loan forgiveness effort to cancel billions in student loan debt.

On Tuesday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced he is leading a coalition of seven states in a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its SAVE plan.

The lawsuit comes after eleven other states led by Kansas recently filed another lawsuit against the Biden administration over the program that began forgiving student loan debt earlier this year.

'With the stroke of his pen, Joe Biden is attempting to saddle working Missourians with half trillion dollars in college debt,' the Missouri attorney general said in a statement. 

'The United States Constitution makes clear that the President lacks the authority to unilaterally "cancel" student loan debt for millions of Americans without express permission from Congress,' he added.

 The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated the SAVE plan could cost as much as $474.9 billion over then years.

Two lawsuits have been filed by Republican state attorneys general against the Biden administration's income-driven repayment program known as the SAVE plan

Missouri is joined in the lawsuit by the Republican Attorneys General of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma.

The lawsuit filed in the district court for the Eastern District of Missouri states the latest attempt to 'sidesteps the Constitution is only the most recent instance in a long but troubling pattern of the President relying on innocuous language from decades-old statues to impose drastic, costly policy changes.'

Last month, Kansas was joined by Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Utah in another lawsuit filed in Kansas. 

President Biden at an event to address student loan debt in Madison, WI on Monday

Protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court as the court blocked President Biden's previous student loan relief plan last June

The Republican Attorneys General take issue with the SAVE program which was announced last summer after the Supreme Court blocked Biden's $400 billion plan to wipe out debt last June.

Like other income driven repayment plan, the SAVE plan calculates monthly payments based on income and family size, but it decrease payments for most borrowers. 

The program cuts payments from 10 percent of discretionary income to five percent and many borrowers would pay $0 per month. 

Those who had original balances of $12,000 or less would have loans forgiven after 10 years. All borrowers would receive forgiveness after repayment of 20 to 25 years.

In February, the administration began canceling debt under the plan for the first time including $1.2 billion for 153,000 borrowers.

The administration has said nearly 8 million borrowers have enrolled in the plan, and more than 4.5 million borrowers have payments of $0 while another one million borrowers have monthly payments of less than $100.

The Education Department said it would continue to identify borrowers who qualify for their debt to be forgiven on a continuing basis.

While states are challenging the SAVE program, the Biden administration announced on Monday another set of actions it was taking which could when combined with the SAVE program could help wipe student loan debt for 30 million Americans. 

Those actions include efforts to cancel interest for borrowers who owe more than their original balances, for those who would qualify for other programs but have not yet signed up, for borrowers who have been in repayment for 20 or 25 years and for those facing financial hardship. 

The Biden administration said it's confident in its new effort which relies on the Higher Education Act, not the HEROES Act which was used in the first attempt to cancel student loan debt.