Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has said that she would wipe out student loan debt for a vast majority of the nations borrowers. On Tuesday, she unveiled a plan to do it starting day one of her presidency.

Warrens plan posits that existing laws give the Department of Education broad, though currently neglected, power to cancel student loan debt through the Higher Education Act. The plan says Warren would immediately order her secretary of education to take advantage of these rules.

Lawyers at the Project on Predatory Student Lending confirm the legality in a letter released with the plan, writing that through the Higher Education Act, Congress gave the secretary of education power to create and to cancel or modify debt owed under federal student loan programs.

That provision empowers the Secretary to execute the broad debt cancellation plan you have proposed, the lawyers wrote.