After the Supreme Court handed down its decision to veto President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan, right-wing media erupted in celebration, mocking those who would have had their debt forgiven and criticizing the plan at large. 

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court rejected Biden’s student debt relief plan, which the administration had argued was fair under the 2003 Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act. Biden’s plan, if it had been enacted, would have canceled up to $20,000 in debt for 43 million Americans. Although it would have cost an estimated $400 billion to implement, student debt in the U.S. currently stands at $1.7 trillion. The three dissenting liberal judges in the case wrote of the majority’s decision, “In every respect, the Court today exceeds its proper, limited role in our Nation’s governance.” 

Right-wing media have expressed their disapproval of student debt relief for years, with some figures erroneously calling plans to forgive said debt “a fascistic act” and a “vote-buying scheme.” Ironically, right-wing media seemingly have no issue with the forgiveness of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, which was intended to help businesses stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic but was unfortunately rife with fraud. The vast majority of PPP loans were forgiven. In August 2022, the White House showcased multiple Republican Congress members who have been staunchly against student debt relief while having six- and seven-figure PPP loans forgiven.

Right-wing media figures mocked those with student loan debt, telling them to “pay their bills”

• Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter tweeted, “I can’t believe that Trump is insisting that you pay the debt that you voluntarily took out to buy some thing that increases your earning power. It’s so unfair that you actually have to pay your own bills instead of making other people do it for you. Darn that Trump!”
• Trump’s former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, who has been regularly involved in shady financial dealings, claimed that “It’s a win for being responsible. It’s a win for paying your own obligations. It’s a win for not requiring your neighbors to pay your bills. It’s a win for stopping dictatorial directives. It’s a win for taxpayers.”
• On Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, radio host Ken Coleman congratulated the decision as a “great win for individual responsibility in America” and complained that forgiving student debt was a “slap in the face” to those who had already paid off student loans. 
• RedState’s Andrew Malcolm said that “They could always just repay the loan as they originally promised” in response to The Hill’s article about student loan borrowers. 
• Fired Fox Nation host Todd Starnes tweeted, “Supreme Court Says ‘Pay Your Bills!” 

Right-wing media figures expressed their criticism of Biden’s debt relief forgiveness plan, claiming that proposing the plan was a “power grab”

• On Twitter, Federalist Society contributor Dan Lennington said, in part quoting the decision, that Biden’s plan for debt relief “would give him ‘virtually unlimited power’” and was a “'staggering’ power grab.”
• Fox News co-host Jeanine Pirro took to Twitter to assert that “Joe Biden had NO right to forgive student loans.”
• Student Freedom Caucus Network communications director Greg Price uses an excerpt of Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion to mock Biden’s debt relief plan, stating that “Justice Roberts cited Nancy Pelosi in the majority opinion when she said Biden doesn't have the power to cancel student debt.”
• In response to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) exclaiming that “more than 40 million hard working Americans are waiting for the help that President Biden promised them” with student loan debt, right-wing commentator Stephen L. Miller said on Twitter, “Maybe President Biden shouldn't have made that promise.”