The Right Should Support Student Loan Forgiveness
The right’s stance on student loans is simple: if you fell into a financial trap at 18, you deserve to suffer for the rest of your life—because nothing says ‘personal responsibility’ like making sure young people never recover from bad advice.
The American right opposes student loan forgiveness, claiming that it upholds responsibility, fiscal discipline, and fairness. This argument is a lie. The opposition is not rooted in principle but in a desire to see the young suffer for the circumstances they were forced into. It is sadism masquerading as virtue.
A civilization that shackles its youth with unbearable debt is a civilization that has lost the will to survive. It creates a generation of economic prisoners—young men and women unable to marry, have children, or build anything lasting. A society built on the ideal of perpetual productivity rather than family and community is a society in decline.
Yet, many on the right defend this system. They claim that forgiveness rewards irresponsibility. They sneer at young debtors, insisting that because they suffered, others must suffer too. But this is not justice. It is petty cruelty. No society built on the principle of intergenerational resentment can endure.
If the right is serious about preserving civilization, it must reject its misguided devotion to endless work and financial servitude. It must recognize that student loan forgiveness is not an attack on responsibility, but a necessary correction.
The goal is not simply to erase debt, but to restore the conditions in which family, culture, and national stability can thrive. The right claims to stand for these things. If it is to be taken seriously, it must act accordingly.
II. The Purpose of a Society is More Than Economic Output
At some point, someone decided that the highest calling of life wasn’t raising a family or building a community, but working 60 hours a week to keep the GDP numbers looking spicy.
Modern conservatism has been corrupted by an obsession with the market. It speaks of civilization as though its highest function is to produce workers, maximize GDP, and sustain endless economic growth. This is not the foundation of a healthy society.
A nation exists to preserve its people, its traditions, and its way of life. It exists to foster strong families, maintain cultural continuity, and ensure that future generations can thrive. An economy is a tool to serve these ends—not the other way around. When the right reduces human value to economic productivity, it adopts the very materialist worldview it claims to oppose.
Student loan debt is one of the clearest examples of this distortion. It forces young people to spend their best years servicing an obligation that does nothing to strengthen their communities, their families, or their personal development. It does not train them in a craft, teach them to build, or instill duty to something greater. It merely ensures they are tethered to an economy that treats them as nothing more than labor units.
A civilization that prioritizes debt repayment over marriage and children is one that has abandoned its future. If the right believes in preserving tradition, it must recognize that a generation drowning in loans cannot form the families necessary to sustain it. A society that treats its youth as raw economic material, rather than as inheritors of a living culture, is a society that will not survive.
III. Youth Indebtedness is a Form of Social Control
Debt is the best kind of prison—it doesn’t need bars, just an interest rate high enough to keep you too exhausted to think about escaping.
The right claims to value independence, yet it supports a system that turns young people into financial prisoners. Student debt is not simply an economic burden—it is a mechanism of control. It dictates where people live, what careers they pursue, and how they structure their lives. It ensures that they remain dependent on institutions that do not serve their interests.
A young man burdened with debt cannot afford to take risks. He cannot start a family, build a business, or explore paths outside the approved economic machine. He is locked into a cycle of endless work, his decisions dictated not by his aspirations or values but by the demands of loan repayment. The system is not designed to free him—it is designed to keep him compliant.
The same is true at the cultural level. A population struggling under financial pressure has neither the time nor the energy to resist the forces that seek to reshape society. Debt keeps people tethered to corporate and government structures that demand ideological conformity. It ensures that dissent is costly, that independence is out of reach, and that the next generation remains trapped in a cycle of obligation rather than self-determination.
The right should oppose this system with the same intensity it opposes government overreach. A society that forces its young into servitude under the banner of “personal responsibility” is a society that has abandoned any real commitment to freedom. Debt is not just an economic problem. It is a form of modern feudalism.
IV. The Reality of Student Loans: A System of Entrapment
At 18, you can’t rent a car or legally buy beer, but you can sign away your financial future to Sallie Mae—seems legit!
The right argues that student loan borrowers “knew what they were signing up for.” This is a lie. The vast majority of young people who take on student debt do so under pressure from parents, teachers, and a system that conditioned them to believe higher education was the only path to success. They were told that college was an investment, that a degree would guarantee prosperity, and that any debt incurred would be manageable. These were false promises.
Unlike other forms of debt, student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. A failed business venture, a reckless investment, or even gambling debts can be erased, but not student loans. The system was designed this way—not to protect taxpayers, but to ensure that lenders could extract wealth indefinitely.
The interest rates are deliberately structured to keep borrowers trapped. Payments made for years barely touch the principal. Loan balances grow larger rather than smaller. The so-called "forgiveness programs" are bureaucratic mazes, designed to fail those who attempt to use them. This is not an accident. It is a system built to extract as much labor from the young as possible before they are allowed to participate in the world as free individuals.
The right once understood that predatory financial systems were a threat to national stability. Yet, when it comes to student loans, it defends a system of generational theft. A society that keeps its young in chains cannot expect them to build a future worth preserving.
V. The Motivating Force Against Loan Forgiveness is Sadism
Boomers call it ‘personal responsibility,’ but it looks a lot like ‘I suffered, so you have to suffer too—otherwise, I might have to admit my suffering was pointless.’
The opposition to student loan forgiveness is not about fairness. It is not about fiscal responsibility. It is about the desire to see others suffer.
Older generations, many of whom attended college when tuition was affordable or even free, now demand that young people “pay their dues.” They refuse to acknowledge that the economic landscape has changed, that wages have stagnated, or that the price of higher education has been artificially inflated by government-backed lending. Instead, they insist that because they struggled, others must struggle too. This is not justice. It is resentment masquerading as principle.
The cruelty is deliberate. The same people who demand fiscal discipline for students had no issue bailing out reckless banks in 2008 or printing trillions to subsidize corporate interests. The same politicians who claim loan forgiveness is "socialism" eagerly fund endless wars and government waste. They do not oppose debt relief on moral grounds—they oppose it because it would relieve a burden they believe others deserve to bear.
This mindset is not conservatism. It is the ideology of decline, the belief that suffering is a virtue in itself rather than a condition to be overcome. A civilization that thrives does not demand pain for its own sake. It lifts its people, strengthens its families, and ensures that future generations can build upon a stable foundation. The right must decide whether it stands for preservation—or for pointless, self-inflicted misery.
VI. The Right’s Hypocrisy on Debt and Responsibility
Apparently, personal responsibility only applies to students and the working class—billionaires and defense contractors get a free pass.
The American right speaks endlessly about personal responsibility. It tells students that they must pay their debts, that they must suffer the consequences of their choices, and that no one is entitled to a bailout. But when it comes to corporations, banks, and the military-industrial complex, these principles vanish.
The same politicians who sneer at student loan forgiveness had no problem handing out billions in corporate bailouts. They did not demand that Wall Street “learn fiscal discipline” when the financial sector collapsed under its own reckless greed. They did not tell failed businesses to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” Instead, they flooded the system with government money to ensure that the powerful suffered no consequences for their failures.
The hypocrisy is undeniable. If debt must always be repaid, why are student borrowers the only ones expected to bear the burden alone? If personal responsibility is the highest virtue, why does it never apply to the elites who gamble with the nation’s economy? The truth is that debt relief is only considered immoral when it benefits ordinary people. When it serves the powerful, it is rebranded as "economic stabilization."
The right claims to stand against government overreach, but in defending the student loan system, it endorses one of the most predatory financial structures ever devised. A conservatism that exists only to punish the weak while shielding the strong is not worth defending. True responsibility means protecting the future, not crushing it under the weight of manufactured debt.
VII. Student Loan Forgiveness as a Pro-Family, Pro-Nation Policy
If conservatives really want young people to have kids, they should start by making sure they can afford more than instant ramen and shared apartments with six roommates.
If the right truly believes in family, tradition, and national stability, it must abandon its opposition to student loan forgiveness. Debt is not simply a financial burden—it is a direct assault on the foundations of a healthy society. A generation drowning in loans cannot form families, buy homes, or participate in civic life. They cannot invest in the future because they are trapped in the past, paying for decisions they made as teenagers under false promises.
A nation that values its survival must prioritize family formation over debt repayment. Marriage rates are declining. Birth rates are collapsing. The cost of living rises while wages stagnate. The result is a generation that delays or forgoes children entirely, not out of selfishness, but because they cannot afford to provide for them.
The right often claims to support policies that encourage family formation. But no tax incentive or marriage bonus will offset the crushing burden of student debt. If conservatives are serious about strengthening the family, they must remove the financial chains that prevent young people from building stable homes.
Loan forgiveness should not be framed as a giveaway—it should be part of a broader vision for restoring national strength. Incentives can be tied to marriage, skilled labor, or national service, reinforcing responsibility while ensuring that debt does not strangle the next generation. The goal is not to erase consequences, but to create a society where people are free to build something greater than themselves. A nation that refuses to do this will not last.
VIII. Conclusion: A Choice Between Civilization and Decline
A nation that keeps its young in financial chains shouldn’t be surprised when they have zero interest in preserving it.
A civilization that values its future must unshackle its youth. A society that believes in family, community, and national strength cannot afford to keep its next generation trapped in a system designed to extract, weaken, and control. Student loan forgiveness is not an attack on responsibility—it is a necessary correction to a predatory financial order that has crippled millions before they could even begin their adult lives.
The right stands at a crossroads. It can continue worshiping a distorted vision of free-market puritanism, punishing the young for making choices they were pressured into, and ensuring that they remain locked in a cycle of endless work and debt. Or it can embrace a higher vision—one that prioritizes stability over suffering, duty over resentment, and national survival over financial servitude.
The American right claims to be the party of family values. It claims to stand for a civilization rooted in tradition, faith, and stability. Yet, by opposing student loan forgiveness, it ensures that young people cannot afford to start families, cannot afford to put down roots, and cannot afford to devote themselves to anything beyond mere survival.
A nation that forces its young into financial chains cannot expect loyalty, patriotism, or sacrifice. It will reap only resentment and decline. The right must decide whether it exists to preserve a civilization or to punish those who inherit it. It cannot do both.