Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was still making student loan payments when he joined the bench — and one classmate suggested declaring bankruptcy to avoid the 'crushing weight' of payments: book

• The Supreme Court will hear two challenges to Biden's student loan debt relief plan on Tuesday. 
• In 2007, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote about the "crushing weight" of student debt in his own life. 
• The ruling could impact the economic fate of millions of US student loan borrowers. 

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was still paying off his student loans when he joined the High Court in 1991. 

In his 2007 memoir "My Grandfather's Son," Thomas, the court's longest-serving justice, spoke of the "crushing weight" of student debt from his time at Yale Law School. He recalled how his only option to afford his final years at Yale was to sign up for a tuition postponement option where a group of students would pay off their loans together, with the highest income paying the most.