Supporters of student loan write-offs say the position taken by officials in these Republican states is tantamount to hypocrisy. They point to the fact that many Republican leaders are keen to criticize Biden, but not their own states or legislatures, for pursuing plans with similar goals.

“The first thing that jumps out at me is the hypocrisy,” said Natalia Abrams, president of the Student Debt Crisis Center, an impartial nonprofit group advocating the total cancellation of all federal student loan debt.

However, Republican officials in states with existing loan write-off programs and expansion proposals say there is a difference between total loan write-offs and efforts by their own states to fill gaps in certain occupations by offering financial incentives. They also claim that their state programs are constitutional, while Biden’s is not. His program, they say, is an overreach by the federal government.

But one of the most prominent Republicans criticism is that loan forgiveness provides “unfair” an advantage for people who still have debt over others who have already paid off theirs or decided to forego college altogether.

“College may not be the right decision for every American, but for students who took out loans, it was their decision: able adults and willing borrowers who consciously agreed to the terms of the loan and agreed to take on debt in exchange for receiving a loan. classes,” the 22 Republican governors wrote in their joint letter. “A high-paying degree is not the key to realizing the American dream—it’s hard work and personal responsibility. Many borrowers have worked hard, made sacrifices, and paid off their debt. salary, not extra school and credit.”

Defenders point out that the government programs offered in most of these gubernatorial states nonetheless provide the very kind of write-offs they have neglected.

“Republican politicians speak on both sides,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a statement to NBC News. “Their hypocrisy shows what hard-working Americans already know: student debt relief is badly needed and widely popular.”

Biden’s program will write off up to $10,000 of debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year (or couples who file taxes together and earn less than $250,000 a year)—regardless of their profession or location. Pell grant recipients, who make up the majority of borrowers, will be eligible for an additional $10,000 in debt relief.

Existing government programs and proposed programs and extensions apply or will apply to the cancellation and repayment of student debt for people working in certain professions or fields.

For example, the five states that have both sued the Biden administration and whose Republican governors have asked the president to withdraw the program—Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, and South Carolina—now have a total of at least 10 programs that partially or completely abolished. publicly funded, which offer student loan forgiveness or repayment for certain occupations, including teachers, nurses, and health workers in rural areas.

This year, Republican lawmakers in these states sponsored bills to expand these programs for mental health professionals in Iowa another Nebraskafor public health professionals and veterinarians in Missourito more teachers and doctors in rural areas in Arkansas and law enforcement officials in South Carolina.

Texas, whose governor and two GOP senators criticized the Biden plan as “unfairis currently proposing at least nine targeted student loan write-off plans—to certain nurses, doctors, teachers, legal aid attorneys, and state Attorney General staff—while 11 more bills have been proposed by state Republican lawmakers in the current legislative session. These proposals include expanding the current student loan write-off policy to nurses and creating new programs to help write off student loans for math and science. teachers, lawyers in the countryside, mental health professionals and another workers.

Georgia is the home state of Republican Party member Marjorie Taylor Green, who criticized Biden’s plan as “unfair” despite having millions in federal loans her own forgiven – currently proposes one student loan cancellation plan for doctors in rural areas, while Republican legislators in the Legislative Assembly have so far introduced at least five bills that propose student loan cancellations for “peacekeepers” health workers, nurses another members of the State General Assembly.

However, GOP governors in both countries — Brian Kemp of Georgia and Greg Abbott of Texas — signed a letter demanding Biden withdraw his own student loan write-off plan.

NBC News contacted all Republican governors in the 22 states that signed the letter, as well as six Republican attorneys general in the states who have filed a lawsuit to block the plan.

Many have defended their states’ programs, arguing that there is a marked difference, both substantively and legally, between the broader policies proposed by Biden and the more targeted policies proposed by their states, although none of the responding officials answered the question, why it was so. it is acceptable for states, but not for the federal government, to forgive debts.

Some also reiterated one of the legal arguments used in the Biden lawsuit: that the White House plan is illegal and unconstitutional because it circumvents Congress, which they say has sole power to make laws regarding student loan write-offs, and because it is incorrectly supported The Biden administration claims a decade-old law allows it to cancel loans to counter the economic impact of the Covid pandemic.

“The Uniform Ivy League Alumni Student Debt Relief Program, which bypasses the legislature of Congress and is formed by executive order, is in no way comparable to legislation designed to attract and grow a top-level workforce that can fill critical provisions related to with public safety and health, and are being scrutinized by the State House of Representatives and the Senate,” Garrison Douglas, a spokesman for Kemp, Georgia’s governor, said in a statement.

“Unlike President Biden’s unconstitutional executive order, the Florida Nursing Student Loan Forgiveness Program is authorized by Florida Statute Chapter 1009.66,” DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern said in a statement.

Kansas Attorney General Chris Kobach said in a statement that there was no hypocrisy in his office’s decision to sue Biden despite the state having multiple plans to write off student loans because “one is unconstitutional and the other isn’t.” .

“The executive branch of the federal government does not have the unilateral authority under the US Constitution to forgive loans and spend money to pay off debt without an act of Congress,” he said.

Alexa Henning, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas governor, said the federal program and Arkansas’ student loan write-off programs “are not even remotely similar.”

“As the governor said, what Joe Biden did is socialism and unconstitutional, he, those who didn’t go to school or have already paid off their loans, want to retroactively pay off hundreds of billions of dollars of other people’s debts,” the statement said. .

NBC News also reached out to 20 of the dozens of Republican lawmakers who have proposed bills in their current sessions to expand or create new state programs that offer student loan forgiveness. No one agreed to be interviewed, although one assistant answered questions.

Jason Moyer, chief of staff for Texas State Representative Frederick Fraser, who sponsored a bill to expand the student loan write-off program for some teachers, said his boss’s proposal “has no comparison to federal student debt write-offs.”

“This is tuition compensation, but the federal program is much broader,” he said.

This distinction, however, does not ring true for student loan proponents.

“You know, it all depends on what they want to call excessive,” Abrams of the Student Debt Crisis Center said, referring to the Republicans. “And it seems to come down to who is the messenger with that.”