Map: Where Biden’s student loan ban could have the greatest impact

(NEXSTAR) — In about a week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases challenging President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, which accepted about 26 million applications before legal challenges stalled the process.

With the request open for less than a month, millions of Americans across the country submitted their requests for relief, data released by the White House earlier this month showed. Of these, 16.5 million were fully approved and forwarded to credit servicers for discharge.

Not surprisingly, two of the most populous states — California and Texas — had the most applicants for student debt relief approved, while less populous states like Wyoming and Alaska had the fewest.

This interactive map provides a state-by-state breakdown of student loan forgiveness applicants who have been approved for facilitation.

New Department of Education data obtained from several outlets last week via a Freedom of Information Act request gives an even more detailed breakdown of where the student loan enactment could have an impact if not struck down or amended by the Supreme Court.

The new data, shown in the map below, shows how many borrowers have been fully eligible for debt relief per congressional district. According to the Ministry of Education, the loan servicers of these borrowers have also been notified of the approved debt relief application.

In most congressional districts, between 60 and 65 percent of eligible borrowers applied for student loan forgiveness or were automatically deemed eligible, according to the Department of Education.

In late November, the Department of Education began notifying millions of borrowers that their loan relief application had been approved. By this time, the program was already being challenged in court, and the department was unable to repay the loans.

The Supreme Court will argue orally on February 28 about the program in two cases: one by two individual borrowers who didn’t qualify for the $20,000 maximum relief and the other by six Republican-run states. The Biden administration has argued that no group of challengers has legal standing to sue over the program.

In these six Republican-run states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina — the Biden administration estimates that there are nearly 2.9 million student loan borrowers who could qualify for relief, of which 1 .1 million were approved for enactment.