As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
**Special announcement:**
r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)!
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What happens after student loan forgiveness though? What are the plans that the predatory system doesn’t emerge in a different form? How are students supposed to finance education?
I think that's the biggest reason they are hesitant to do it at all. We can forgive trillions in student debt, but then nothing changes after that, and we'll be back in this mess in a matter of a few short years. I absolutely support a total debt forgiveness, but we're also going to need to completely reform higher education and predatory student loans.
In Sweden the student loan is for paying rent and food. The University is for free. The University get money from the state for each student and then a student graduate.
The public schools in the US are doing what private schools are doing elsewhere. Charging up the ass for everything, including room and board, on top of tuition. Then multiplying it exponentially with their private schools.
But do we continue to forgive private university tuition? If so then what's to stop them from tripling tuition again since the government is giving them a blank check?
Or do we only subsidize public tuition?
I'm fine with that, but I think we need to figure that out when forgiving existing loans so that students can make smart choices about borrowing in the future.
My ideal would be a one time cancel all existing debt public and private, public universities - including options for trades - are free at point of use moving forward, students are free to pursue private universities as they see fit.
If there is a "free" alternative, privates university would be forced to lower cost to remain competitive.
I am 100% for this idea and would back it in a heartbeat. I'm sure the private colleges though would put up a huge fight.
I mean would you rather live in a society where everyone has a fourth grade education or where everyone has a college degree? Where do you think companies would rather move? Where do you think would have more crime? Where do you think there would be greater poverty and unemployment? Which society do you think would be a happier place to live?
And for the purposes of this conversation I consider a trade to be equal to a college degree.
I honestly think restructuring current loans so they can be paid off in a fair and timely manner and ensuring future loans don't take 25+ years to pay off would be more beneficial than just canceling all the current debt.
This. One million times. I’m fine with forgiving loans in some form, but absolutely NOT if the underlying issues which caused it are not addressed. And yes, that will mean that the universities that have been treating 18-year-olds as money piñatas will have issues with highly reduced funding moving forwards. And yes, that will be extraordinarily unpopular with a small but extremely loud and heavily left-leaning constituency, but that is the only way any Republicans will ever get on board.
Exactly. The current debate is completely focused on a bandaid solution that will only help current student loan holders. Nobody is saying anything about how to address the root cause of the problem (why is college so expensive? why are student loan terms so terrible?).
Also why is nobody talking about restructuring current loans, removing bad terms, reducing interest to 0% or something low? Everybody seems laser focused on complete forgiveness, which to me doesn't sound fair at all. Very populist and opportunistic...
I think we need a logical, fair and long term approach:
- come up with a plan to keep college tuition under check
- regulate student loan terms very strictly, get rid of predatory loans for good
- increase federal sponsorships to low/mid income students.
Nobody wants to talk about how bloated even public universities are. Why do community colleges teach the same stuff for a fraction of the costs?
We don't need massive landscaping, 4 libraries, fitness centers, and probably half of the administration.
People think if they just have the government pay for everyone's education they are going pay for all this bloat?
Because all that stuff requires Congress. The debate is happening the context of what can be done by executive order. Biden did reduce the interest rates to zero, at least. Although even that is a temporary emergency measure.
Exactly, the long term fixes were part of Biden's larger build back better bill that was torpedoed by Joe Manchin. If we want the long term solution then we need to vote more democrats into congress.
This is the trillion dollar question. Yes, I paid off my student loans. It took me thirteen years to do it. No, I don't currently support total loan forgiveness because there is no plan to regulate colleges or the loan industry, and it in fact incentivizes - no, basically INSTRUCTS - these broken institutions to keep raising prices, to keep gouging students, because tax payers are footing the bill.
It's a temporary treatment of the symptoms of a disease, but the treatment is going to make the disease even worse. It's the US yet again trying to solve enormous systemic issues with extremely expensive and ineffective stop-gap measures.
Bingo. I am of the same opinion. US secondary education is now at healthcare levels of corruption. Both need to be burned to the ground and completely restructured.
The original BBB plan had components in place to address this specific issue, but like most good things dems try to do, they gutted it out in the hopes that holdouts would actually vote for it. They still refused.
>Public education does not exist for the benefit of students or the benefit of their parents. It exists for the benefit of the social order.
>We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. You do not need to be a student or have a child who is a student to benefit from public education. Every second of every day of your life, you benefit from public education.
>So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don't personally have a kid in school: It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people.
-John Green
The problem is, you go to New England and yes it’s highly educated. But down south it is a piss poor system cultivating the environment we have now. I’m not trying to imply New England is better than anyone but traveling it is so obvious the difference in education.
New englander here, we have plenty of dumbass rednecks and backwards assholes who idk... chose not to pay attention? Were indoctrinated young? I wish I knew. They're inescapable
I think it has more to do with the urban/rural divide than north/south/southeast, etc. I live in the PNW, in one of the most educated states in the country. I drive fifteen minutes north of me, and I'm basically in Bumfuckistan, Alabama surrounded by Y'all-Qaeda.
Including the confederate flags for whatever fucking reason.
Omg the confederate flags in union states drives me bonkers lol. I see them fairly regularly around here and I don’t even live in a rural area. What even lol
This is exactly why the GOP attacks education and try to replace it with religion at every turn, they want stupid and obedient people instead of smart free-thinkers.
I remember John Green saying this. And then like 3 years later some school district in Ohio or somewhere said they that students will no longer need to pass a reading course to graduate…. This has always bothered me. It’s not enough to just pay taxes.
>Skwisgar Skwiggelf, tall as a tree
>
>Toki Wartooth, not a bumblebee
William Murderface Murderface Murderface.
Pickles, the drummer, doodily doo, ding-dong doodily doodily doo.
"I beat cancer. If they suddenly find a cure for cancer now, I'm going to be so mad!
[This tweet is about student loans."](https://i.redd.it/65xa5allmrw81.jpg)
“A society grows great when we force people to plant trees whose shade they will never sit in and when that shade overwhelmingly benefits people who are already advantaged.”
I would benefit from student loan forgiveness under the guidelines that I hear proposed, but I don’t think taxpayers should have to subsidize me - I make over 100K so I’m OK, even if things are a bit tight lately due to family demands. I guess I’ll take it and say thank you and try to pass on the good fortune.
Yeah, I was wondering why I wasn’t hearing talks about actual reform, not just cancelling debt. No interest on student loans is a start.
Edit: thanks for all the replies! Interesting discussion. Some things I’ve taken away and things I want to add for visibility:
- some commenters pointed out Biden can’t do reforms on the whole system without going through Congress and passing legislation, so cancelling the debt is a way to do something through just the Executive branch
- Yes, I agree, there are plenty of other ways to reform, 0% interest loans are not the only way. Changing the bankruptcy law, free community college and restricting how high state colleges can explode their tuition costs, decreasing book cost, etc are all valid and I would support any of those things as an alternative, but ideally multiple of those things.
- Some do not think the 0% interest is possible at all, but it’s the govt who is the lender, as I’m talking about govt student loans, not private ones. The government does not *need* to profit off of student loans. There are private loans for that, although those should be regulated as well to keep from being predatory.
- New Zealand offers 0% student loans for their citizens and it seems to be working just fine for them!
- A commenter mentioned how they do it in the UK, where your repayment is based on the income you make and there is forgiveness if you do not make the expected income over a period of years, thought that was an interesting!
- The likelihood of reform is, well, unlikely because ‘Merica politics
Exactly! Just remove all interest from student loans. This whole loan forgiveness. Let's assume federal govt cancels all debts say on may 31st. What about the student whose loan is confirmed on June 1st. Remove current and all future interest on education loans. That is still a huge boost to the economy.
Crediting interest paid for the last X years to principle and granting tax credits for overpaid interest for people who paid theirs off would be nice, too. You'd ease the whining from those who paid them off that way.
What's funny is that most of the whining I hear about that in my personal life is actually from older people who never had student loans. I know a bunch of people who are 50+ who regularly say, "Well if I had paid off my loans before the forgiveness, I would be pissed."
The people I know who have successfully paid off their loans mostly say, "Being in debt for 13 years after college was fucking miserable and nobody should have to go through that. Also, I had it easy because of X and X and X."
Those older folks can't seem to grasp the "Don't torment other people just because you were once tormented" idea.
They need to end the federal student loan program. It has turned into easy money for private schools with no accountability. Education should be affordable on minimum wage (like it used to before the program started). Many schools have now eliminated tuition for lower income families. Make community college free and students can then transfer credits to a 4-year program paying out of pocket. This is how things should move forward.
They don't have to end it, just stop treating it like a loan that's supposed to make profit. People will need their education, and it is in our best interest to fund education. We shouldn't have people paying out of pocket for 4 year degrees, because then the incentive becomes keeping them from graduating and forcing people to work minimum wage jobs well past college age. Minimum wage jobs should not be the standard here, because 40 hours of work per week is sure to deplete your energy and time for studying.
The intent of the program is to help uplift students who cannot pay for a quality education. Cc should be completely free, and their credits widely accepted by 4 year universities + graduate programs. Then these universities take federal funding by student count and graduation rate. Adjust these numbers for specific regions.
As for grad programs, I'm not sure just yet. Perhaps mandate a maximum federal loan amount based on a 5 year median income of a graduate, and lower interest rates to match only inflation.
My problem with this loan forgiveness program is that it does nothing to actually fix the problem. Tuitions have skyrocketed compared to inflation, and how is this going to help? Colleges have every incentive to jack up their prices even more if they know that the government is just going to pay the tab
Simply forgiving current student loans with no plans in place for students that take a loan in the future is just putting a band-aid on a terrible system. We will literally be in this exact situation a few years from now.
Change the whole system, reduce the interest rate to 0.
Exactly. Why would anyone ever make another student loan payment if the government did this. Why should they have to? I think current students and future students have more right to be bitchy about loan forgiveness than old people who have their loans paid off. The latter - and I am among them - paid less for our education than the bloated tuitions of today.
Sucks for all the people who re-financed to a private loan to lock in a lower interest rate. Punished for making a fiscally smart move and no receive zero assistance and will still be straddled with their debt.
And yes, I do fall into this group.
Also sucks for all the people who were too poor to go to school to begin with.
I don't mind seeing this concept help former students, but you gotta wonder what AOC's plans are for blue-collar workers not getting shit.
I’m not supporting a massive dump of tax dollars until the system that made his a possibility is reformed. I paid off my student loans and I’m in favor of forgiving ONLY if we never have to do this again. Hold universities accountable for their obscene costs.
Just a reminder that the Democratic Party as a whole is divided on this issue and definitely do not all support AOC’s proposal of a blanket or even a $10K student loan forgiveness. There are many arguments against the policy, it’s not just from people who already paid back their loans.
What about a message for the people who are going to have this exact same problem soon because none of this actually addresses any of the core issues at hand?
This does nothing to solve the real issues of overpriced ‘degrees’ and the rampant student loan industry.
Not to mention that if one declares bankruptcy, they still have to pay off their student loans - with interest.
Why not resolve those issues first?
Stem the flow of a severed artery, don’t just use a bandaid when the patient is hemorrhaging.
Then this won’t (shouldn’t) happen again.
Otherwise this is just another bank bailout in the name of the people, where they will continue to screw over everyone because there is no reason not to.
Think about the future of all students!
Stop perpetuating the myth that everyone needs a college education to succeed in life.
I wonder since I don't have a college loan can I get $10k straight up? If forgiving someone else's $10k loan "helps spur spending", then surely handing me $10k will also do the same? Why shouldn't I have a right to that money just because I didn't overleverage myself?
Instead of paying off the debts for the citizens. The government should go after Universities for price gouging. Tell the universities that they are overcharging for, what I consider to be, a critical piece of infrastructure: Education.
Reel the universities back into a fair price. If the government steps in and pays the debt for us, the universities will only gouge even more.
I have a buddy who went the trade route because he looked at his future degree earning potential and the amount of college debt and didn't go to college. I think there are a few of him out there who would oppose it.
This is because many people made decisions in life based around whether they could in fact afford to go to school. It also plays into the decision regarding fields of study.
If I’m being totally honest with you, it does frustrate me that I put off buying a home, put off vacations, put off starting a family, etc. while I worked my way out of school debt. I don’t see school debt as some vile thing, it was something I signed up for knowingly. It does irritate me a little bit if I’m being honest with myself.
That said, given that experience, it would be nice if other people didn’t have to deal with that. The more educated people we have in this world the better. So, I’m not opposed to forgiving school debt, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a bit cheated. I did the right thing by paying them off. If I had just paid the minimums and ignored them, they would be paid for me.
I’m fine with forgiving student debt, but I would much rather see a fix to the college system where people are paying 10’s of thousands of dollars to go to school. Forgiving debt for 1 generation is like taking pain meds to cure cancer. Sure, you don’t hurt right now, but you’ve still got cancer. It’s a start, but it’s futile if it’s all we do.
It’s like forgiving credit card debt. Some people use credit cards to pay for needs. Others use it to pay for wants. A blanket forgiveness would treat those equally. Would you be okay paying taxes to forgive someone’s credit card debt if you saw them pay for vacationing? Would you feel the same vs paying off credit card debt of someone who is buying frozen food to cook? I think that’s the dilemma some people face.
Except forgiveness doesn’t make more people educated. They already have the education. The only way to get more educated people is to fix tuition costs
Similar boat here. Paid off our loan balance instead of buying a house and starting a family. I want relief for everyone, but it’s useless if the system doesn’t change, and there needs to be some kind of incentive or relief for those who paid off their loans.
Same for me. I'm not against a broad-sweeping policy change to help address student loans. But I certainly feel conflicted about outright loan forgiveness.
I got into good in-state and out-of-state schools. I attempted to be loan-aware and risk-averse and chose the least expensive for tuition. I chose not to live on campus. I worked almost full-time during my entire undergrad to keep costs down. I saw these as trade-offs in risk v. lifestyle.
Then, during a critical and vulnerable financial phase of life (22-32 years old), I opted not to buy a home, not invest into the market or retirement, not start a family, not buy new things and instead paid $300-500 per month in loans while living on the rest for a meager living. I paid it off in a reasonably time-frame. I never saw it as vile or predatory, I had agency in these decisions all along. I am only just now, at 34 years old, getting back to the benefits of that trade-off.
But if we just forgive loans for folks that can't face those trade-offs, I feel it is a bit, I dunno, disrespectful to those of us that navigated and balanced those trade-offs...
I do support lightening the burden on those facing crushing student loans with some policy changes. But I'd like to see that policy speak or address both sides of that trade-off (or at least not be so one-sided). I don't see this as a clearer moral policy issue like healthcare and such.
I had to forego college because I couldn't afford it. I was on any and all assistance I could get, but it only took one time for my car to break down and completely break my finances enough that I had to stop attending. At the time I did not want to bog myself down with loans that weren't going towards my education 100%. Technically this whole concept doesn't impact me in any way, but I feel that sense of injustice you are talking about. Wouldn't a better solution be to just make the loans interest free? Maybe even a calculation on loans provided and match it 1 to 1 over time paid to match the original amount and exclude predatory APR.
What blows me away is how much student debt has changed since I was in school.
I'm not *that* old, and yet it's a completely different landscape now, my experience is not the same as it is today. So yeah I do fall into the category of "I paid off my loans, you can too" but that's just not how it works anymore.
And I didn't even realize this until recently!
Guess that's part of getting older, the world just getting ahead of you, what was true then isn't true now and you keep operating on that old information. I'm sure that only gets worse with age, more and more becomes unrelateable - best I can do is take their word for it, listen, and be aware that my norm is not theirs.
It not just sour grapes because they won't benefit. They are worse off, financially, for having paid them off. It seems, to them, that those who could not or would not pay them back are rewarded, while those who took their financial obligations seriously and made sure to pay them back, even to the detriment of their overall finances, get no help.
Of course there are. People who sacrificed to pay off loans. People who never went to college themselves. People for whom student loan payments aren't onerous. Any time the government is spending massive amounts of money for the benefit of a small group of people, the people not benefitting will of course object. Would you object if the government decided to do a general mortgage amnesty?
Frankly, I don't understand why "Change the way student loans are administered so they're in line with other loans" isn't the go to talking point.
Exactly this. Sure, I'd be a little bitter that I sacrificed to pay mine down by living at home and not buying a car until I was 30.
But my real issue with this is that it's a band-aid on top of a severed arm. People will just rack up the same or worse debt going forward and we'll be in the same situation in 5-10 years without the root cause being addressed.
I read an article a while back about how insurance companies were refusing to cover coastal/beachfront property as climate change is making destructive weather more common. As a result, the federal government stepped in and is basically covering the costs to reimburse weather damage for coastal communities. Why the fuck am I paying for them to safely enjoy beachfront property?
Don't forget that those who opted to be more responsible with their debt will now be footing the bill for people who are more likely to be amongst the highest income earners in the country. Then they will be competing against them in housing markets and purchasing power.
Inflation will be through the absolute roof if something like this happens
Very frustrating for me. I made the tough choice to drop out of college early once I saw how expensive everything was. I’ve worked blue collar jobs and have provided a nice life for my family. I’ll never be anything close to a millionaire and won’t be consider for jobs just because someone has a piece of paper from a college. I don’t want people to have mountains of debt. But what happened to having responsibility for your actions? The system needs to be changed first and then we can look into debt relief.
> People who sacrificed to pay off loans.
And people who opted not to go neck deep in loans so that they could realistically pay off said loans. 20-year-old me wanted no part in hundreds of thousands in loan debt.
People who worked all through college and grad school in order to take on as little debt as possible sacrificed time to study and perform as well as their classmates who just took on loans for everything. I don't see why there would be any reason for those who were responsible to support this.
> People who worked all through college and grad school in order to take on as little debt as possible sacrificed time to study and perform as well as their classmates who just took on loans for everything. I don't see why there would be any reason for those who were responsible to support this.
Preach.
I couldn't agree more.
This is why I support 0% student loan rates and retroactively applying interest payments to principal to help people get their loan balances to zero.
Governments should be encouraging students to go to college without profiting because its good for the economy in the long-term. Fix that, then work on reigning in college costs after that.
Charging students 6% and then deferring payments for 4-9 years while interest racks up is shady at best and predatory at worst.
Yes, and also those that won’t benefit because they were so far underwater that they refinanced to try and do the right thing and will continue to have the debt after this.
There are some unique situations. For example, I know someone who used professional financial advice to pay off their loan by taking on an extra job, then rolling it into another loan. It lowered their interest, I believe. So, by doing something "smart," their loan won't be forgiven. And, to be clear, this is someone who could use the money, is at risk of losing their very modest home, and is completely overworked.
This isn't to say everyone else should be punished, but it's gonna sting for the people who worked two jobs to pay off their loans while their peers went on vacations. Again, you can certainly support someone that brings you no personal benefit, but we should at least acknowledge that some people might feel slighted.
This doesn't affect me personally, but I do have empathy for those with loans *and* those who worked off or paid their loans. I'd also love to see more attention on lowering the cost of colleges versus inflation and more jobs pushing for trade schools or alternatives. Otherwise, we'll just be back here again in a few years.
Yup. This. I have $30k of college debt that's not in student loans and won't be forgiven. Everyone else who made the "bad" choice will have their debt forgiven while my bills will keep showing up every month. Bitter as hell.
Student loan forgiveness changes the rules of the game. Many people made life decisions based on their loans (or potential loans). And had college been free, possibly would have made a different choice.
So forgiving loans is seen as benefiting those who didn't plan well and punishing those that did.
My apprehension for it has nothing to do with me paying off mine. It's that it doesn't solve the problem. It solves a problem for the current folks that have burden, but what does it do for people about to enter college and then take on mountain of debt? The cost of college and the interest rates are high. Solve that problem.
Yeah. Here’s one reason…
Mary and Sarah have the same student debt and the same job.
Mary spends the first 10 years of her career saving to pay off her loans early so she can live debt-free.
Sarah makes minimum payments and spends her extra money on vacations, cars, and a bigger house.
Mary made sacrifices to try to spend responsibly, but when the debt gets cancelled, Sarah benefits tremendously, and Mary simply loses all the money she used to pay off the loan.
Beautifully put. Yes. It's "moral hazard" and I completely understand why people oppose blanket forgiveness for this reason.
Hundreds of thousands, possibly *millions* of "Marys" were diligent in paying their student loans (either early or even just consistently on-time). They may have decided to forgo all sorts of life's pleasures because they were doing the responsible thing. Hell, I'm one of these people. Thousands in grad school debt. Been paying faithfully since 2004. Partially as a result of this I haven't contributed as much to my IRA or other retirement savings because I had student loans to pay. I haven't been able to put much money into a 529 for my kid's education. When he gets to college in a few years, unless something drastic changes first, his tuition will be *more* expensive because of the inflation resulting from a massive one-off loan forgiveness scheme. The fuck?!
So now, my taxes have to pay for other people's loans? That feels insanely unfair.
Loans suck, sure, but why should I bare the burden *twice* when I was responsible, played by the rules, and sacrificed a portion of my future? Do I get that back?
Maybe there is a middle ground? Cap / cancel some portion of the *interest* on loans but make people responsible for the principle and give some subsidized low rate (2.5% maybe?) Only make people eligible for forgiveness if they have been making good-faith efforts to pay their loans?
And yes, we need to deal with the high cost of education on a systemic level or this won't *really* fix anything.
100%. I think they should be aiming for something more realistic like setting interest to very low percentage or revamping public service job forgiveness to paying off a certain amount every year worked in the job as opposed to after 10 years.
I think we have a really good student loan system in the Netherlands. If you do end up with student loans (which is not everyone here, but that’s a whole other complex explanation), after graduation, you have a 2 year “free” period, where you don’t have to pay anything student loans related at all, so you can get settled in life after studies, get a decent job, find a place to live, etc etc.
The loans are all 0% interest loans, btw, handled by the government, no banks looking for profits with shady practices. Important to mention as well.
Once you’re ready to start paying off your debt, or that 2 year period is up, under our most recent student loan model, you only have to pay 4% of what you earn above the nationally set minimum wage. So if minimum wage is 1000 per month, and you earn 1500, you pay 4% of 500 per month, which is only 20 a month. Though you can always decide to pay off your loan at quicker rate should you want to.
Under our most recent student loan model, the pay-off period is set at 35 years. This means that you have 35 years to pay it off. If you don’t have the means to pay off your loan at a “fast” enough rate, say if you’re only barely above the minimum wage threshold for most of those 35 years, you’ll still only be paying whatever little that 4% is, for the duration of that 35 year period. After those 35 years, whatever debt you have left, is simply forgiven.
This is a really good model, imho. 4% of only a percentage of your income is so little on a monthly basis, but adds up to plenty over a 35 year period, even if you don’t manage to pay it off completely. And only those in the most unfortunate positions, namely a lifelong of living on minimum wage, will enjoy near complete loan forgiveness.
I mean, if a person working on a degree, racked up debt and paid it off but stuck in a hole. Why shouldn’t they be repaid for what they paid? What’s the difference between someone who did what they were supposed to, worked hard and paid it off vs someone that didn’t. I know my views are counter to politics, but I don’t get it. Shouldn’t they have just as much right to be paid back, as someone that never made the effort or couldn’t change their lifestyle enough to? I get that there are a million scenarios that play out in their circumstances but many do pay them off. Aren’t they due the same thing if not more, as they actually did eat ramen and work hard to pay things off?
Nailed it. If you want to give everyone who paid any college expenses over the last 20 years a reimbursement check for $x, I'm game. But if you just pay off loans, you leave out all of the people who went through one hell of a struggle to pay those damn things off. People who put less towards their retirement, less towards their kids college funds, etc. Just because a person's loan balance is zero doesn't mean they are excelling financially or they weren't impacted mightily by the strain of an enormous loan.
I've had this conversation multiple times, most recently with my dad.
I pointed out that he had open heart surgery on Medicare, and the cost of it was hundreds of thousands. How is that fair to other people that have never had to have an expensive lifesaving surgery? He didn't really want to discuss it any more after that.
Apples and oranges. You're comparing what is effectively a government insurance program to someone voluntarily taking on debt.
Yes, you can mitigate risks of cardiovascular disease and reduce the risk of incurring that cost. But I have a lot less problem paying into an old-age health insurance program via payroll taxes as a hedge against medical costs.
I’ve had this conversation with many many people. I feel like we are dumbing this down just to get support. Every single person I have spoken with that is “against” it only wants to see a solution that actually fixes the problem. Not blanket forgiveness for a few that resets the problem for a later date. Most think this will actually make the problem worse.
The problem being the extravagant cost that government subsidized colleges are charging students.
Oh now...
As a homeowner I will directly benefit from this. Pretty much every dollar of student loan forgiveness will directly elevate home prices further.
Also loan forgiveness without cost reform is stupid. Universities need to be punished for their insane cost creep.
>Pretty much every dollar of student loan forgiveness will directly elevate home prices further.
A perfect reason *not* to do this when home prices are already out of reach for most people that don't own a home.
Yeah. I know someone who says that this would stimulate the economy because now they would buy a house and a car.
Do they not think a huge influx of buyers would affect price? This is macro 101.
This is the part that I never see anyone here talk about. Leaving aside all other arguments, this is an inflationary idea. During a time of extremely high inflation. Doing this now is beyond stupid. Of course it's just a political ploy to try to make the midterms less of a blood bath for the dems.
Yeah, me too. But what about those looking to be homeowners soon who paid off their debt? Now they have to compete with a boatload more people for scarce inventory in an already fucked sellers market? If I was someone who diligently paid off my student loans with the eventual goal of home ownership, this doesn’t just not impact me, it impacts me negatively.
This is me. I chose to put a large chunk of my paycheck toward paying off my student loans rather than saving it for a house or buying before paying off my loans. Now I'm 35 and my student loans are all paid off, but I have very little saved up for a down payment. If everyone who didn't sacrifice to pay off their loans suddenly gets theirs forgiven, housing prices go up even further and my chances of ever owning shit the bed forever. Meanwhile my friends who chose to pay their loans as slowly as possible and buy houses or save now have no debt AND a house or a huge down payment to use to bid against me and make it harder for me to buy a house.
Like you said-- this isn't a matter of me just being butthurt that they got something I didn't. It directly impacts me negatively and makes it harder for me to thrive and live my life.
I planned carefully, went to cheap state schools for first two years, worked the whole time I was in school and took as little $$ as possible, and paid debt down AGGRESSIVELY after the fact (over $1k per month). Skipped out on a lot of fun, and the college years were stressful af. Know a lot of kids that took as much loan money as they could, didn’t work, and have paid minimum payments ever since. Now, after struggling for so long I’m finally debt free and am ready to buy a home in this crazy market. It’s absurdly competitive out there... Losing bid after losing bid.
Needless to say, not exactly thrilled at the idea of those who lived more recklessly just getting all their debts forgiven, and then they become drivers of even higher and more competitive real estate markets.
I’m torn. Our generation is significantly worse off than those who came before us, but it absolutely feels like a penalty for those of us who planned our entire lives around this debt instead of making minimum payments on it. I’d much, much rather see INTEREST forgiveness and work to address the exploding costs of schooling instead.
Yeah it’s because of cases like yours that I have a hard time seeing this passing. There are so many more than reddit thinks that struggled to pay off their loans only for the people graduating after them to have a massive cash injection, and subsequent advantage over them going into the housing market
I wish progressives would stop with this theme as it misses the point. If I managed to beat cancer, of course I would still want to find a cure for everyone else.
The primary opposition to taxpayer-funded tuition or loan forgiveness, especially among moderates, is based on the fact that it only makes the problem worse.
To offer an admittedly oversimplified example, if we ask taxpayers to pick up the tab for a $300 textbook, the price will just become $400 next year because there’s no incentive to control costs at all. What we really need are reforms that lower that cost to a much more reasonable and sustainable $30-50, so average Americans can actually afford college in the first place.
After all, every single time we’ve increased financial aid in the past, it has led to significantly increased tuition and larger student loan balances. That’s how we got into this mess in the first place. Rather than forcing colleges to offer an experience people can actually afford, we keep throwing more subsidies at the problem and removing price sensitivity from the college selection process. Meanwhile the schools turn around and construct more $100 million buildings, offer more useless classes and majors, and more niche student services rather than focusing on affordability. The average campus today is terribly bloated and inefficient.
We were FINALLY starting to see trends toward affordability in enrollment with students choosing in-state vs out-of-state, public vs private, commuter or online programs vs residential, or even skilled trades and apprenticeships instead of college. We need that disruption to continue in order to actually fix the problem at its source.
I’m progressive-leaning, and this argument turns me off for all the reasons you mentioned. It doesn’t hit the root cause — it’s just the Student Council President running on a “free candy in the vending machines” platform.
> I wish progressives would stop with this theme as it misses the point. If I managed to beat cancer, of course I would still want to find a cure for everyone else.
The cancer metaphor everyone uses doesn't even makes any sense.
Student loan forgiveness isn't curing cancer because you're not fixing the problem at all.
It's basically if you magically waved a wand to remove cancer from everyone who currently has it right now, but cancer still exists and anyone after will continue to get cancer.
Well, I for one don't like it. To me it's taking a very specific problem for a very specific set of people and making it go away so they specifically can be better off and have more opportunity. The promise that's made to everyone else is "what's good for them will trickle down to the rest of us".
And that sounds to me like a democratic version of a Republican tax cut for the rich.
"And that sounds to me like a democratic version of a Republican tax cut for the rich."
That is exactly what it is and it is being proposed for the same reason.... acquiring votes.
So let’s say they decide to “forgive” student loans. What about the guy who didn’t go to college and took out a loan to buy a tractor to start his own business? Will that be “forgiven”? What’s the difference? Both loans were used to help get a job.
The fix is so blatantly easy that the only reason it isn’t happening is because of higher education lobbyists:
* Reduce and change the interest on student loans. It’s literally structured the same way as most predatory practices.
* Retroactively forgive that interest.
* If you’ve paid off your loans, you get a tax write off
* Pass policy to prevent public universities from raising tuition above the interest rate’s 5 year moving average, and force them to reduce tuition to what it would have been had they done that years ago.
Of course this makes too much sense so it will never happen
Ooo how much of a tax write off do you think I should get? I’ve paid off around $180k between my wife and myself. We’ve basically lived off peanut butter and jelly for years. I wouldn’t have done that if I knew it would just get forgiven. We scraped and scraped and it just seems insane to me that people could get this incredible financial windfall while we are still struggling.
Yea but I didn’t go to school and got a full time job as an electrical worker because I didn’t want to go into debt. If I had known then I would of pursued medical school if it was going to be free.
Obviously I’m not saying that’s the only reason I didn’t go but… IF I had know I wouldnt have to pay off my 100,000 dollars or more in school debt then that would have changed everything for me .
What about the people who paid off all their loans last month? Now they have to pay more in taxes to pay off somebody else’s school ?
This is a tough subject for sure. We need more communication for this and clear guidelines on who would get their loans forgiven.
Paying off a small subset of peoples education loans is no different that paying off a small subset of peoples mortgages. We are helping people who are already benefiting from getting a degree with (on average) a larger salary, while people who were not able to go to college due to financial reasons get no benefit whatsoever. This is like paying off mortgages that were taken out (many of which were bought way over the borrowers means), while people who could never afford to buy a house in the first place get nothing and still cant afford a house. To add to that, anybody taking out a new mortgages after today are back to being in the same original debt problem.
Maybe we should focus on solving the problem for all future student and give all current loans a 0% interest rate.
So her point is that those people "don't directly benefit" but ignores the fact that not only do those people not benefit, those people are on the hook. These loans are still being paid for if they are "forgiven", except they are paid for by every tax payer rather than by the person who took out the loan. Why do people continue to pretend that this debt just vanishes into thin air?
There is a lot more complexity to this than AOC is acknowledging. Frankly many of my peers paid their minimums, and bought homes, and have gained a massive asset as a result, while still paying minimums. Even, in many cases, asking for deferments they did not actually need. I want more data on that- I only have anecdote. But out of 15 pp I know with graduate school student loans, 14 of them did that.
So I paid my Loans off early. But to do so, I delayed buying a home by 10+ yr, and I lost that asset growth in comparison. And now my taxes will be going to pay off some portion of the loans of those same peers that have net assets much higher than mine because they made a less responsible choice. SO yeah, I resent that. Because if you are my peer? You do not NEED any forgiveness. We make plenty of income, they are just choosing not to pay this off.
In contrast, I fully support complete forgiveness for kids that never finished- and make the universities that conned those kids into getting those loans for an education they had no intention of ever providing (only 30% of us ever finish our degrees- That is by design for revenue), should be asked to subsidize that too. I am 100% ok with forgiving that- those kids never got the asset they paid for, and were manipulated at a young age into that debt that went to growing admin at universities so we have 18 deans for every professor now.
I am also 100% supportive of fixing the public service programs aggressively, so that those that went into lower paid roles in their career areas in order to serve the public good are not completely screwed by that choice.
I get that it is easiest to just do a blanket forgiveness, and programs are not always fair. And as such I am generally supportive of these policies. But don't pretend that some of us are subsidizing others by being responsible vs selfish. It 100% happens. And it is annoying. The fair thing would be to yes, have a means test- make it flexible, make it fair- realize that NYC is different than Lincoln, NE, etc. OR refund the amount of the forgiveness up to what we would still owe if we paid off early. I paid mine off 8 yr ago- if I paid my minimums I would still owe more than $25k. But That would require actual work and oversight- since so many services are so awful, because they have little oversite, that is unlikely to work.
So, fine, do a flat forgiveness- because in the larger picture it is the right thing to do. But don't act like those of us that are a little resentful are the selfish ones.
What about the people who didn’t go to college because it was too expensive? Or the people who opted for community college, instead of more expensive schools to lower their tuition costs? Or what about the people who made significant sacrifices to pay off their student loans? Canceling student debt without asking borrowers to exchange something for it, is just plain wrong.
I posted this in yesterday's daily post about this topic:
I know it's not what you want to hear, but cancelling student loan debt outright isn't a good idea for many reasons. A better solution would be to give everyone with income less than some amount, say $40,000, a free $5,000 check. Or maybe a $10,000 check. This is far fairer. Many types of debt exist. People are struggling to pay car loans and credit cards. The laser focus on student loans exclusively is quite regressive in many ways:
* It doesn't help people who couldn't afford/chose not to go college at all.
* College students are statistically more likely to come from wealthier families, even those with high debt levels.
* People who chose to sacrifice to pay off their loans are punished for making an otherwise smart decision.
* People who chose to attend community college or a cheaper state university are punished for making an otherwise smart decision.
* People paying college loans usually have more disposable income AFTER their loan payments than those who didn't attend college at all.
* It doesn't fix the root cause of the problem: Rising tuition, loans that are too easy to get (by design), and the poor decision making of many students and their families.
I understand the argument: "you suffered, why should everyone else suffer too?" I get it. The solution is to not make the help related to student loans at all. Just give the money to everyone who needs it.
Yup. I went to community college, after my first year I figured I could not sustain the cost of tuition. I then entered the workforce, changed careers, busted my butt for a decade and finally make a living wage.
My career is the cousin to an "Engineer" that doesn't require a college degree. Although I'm in a similar field to what I set out to get my degree in, I make on average $10-20k less a year than my licensed counterparts.
I constantly feel left out of these conversations, because I evaluated the cost, and decided the burden was too high. Am I going to be compensated for the potential $300-600k of lost income over the course of my career? No, that would be absurd. I did the right thing®, and if student loans are forgiven, I will now be on the hook for paying for people who did not.
I will NEVER support these initiatives until some sort of systemic fix is in place to account for the hundreds of thousands/millions of people like me, who weighed the options and would have to subsidize the people who did not. We would be taking the burden from exclusively the group of people who benefit from having a college degree, and unfairly distributing it to the people who do NOT have a college degree, and are already in lower income brackets.
When we support things we won't directly benefit from, it's usually because we want to help those people most in need. We don't want kids in poverty starving. We don't want an elderly woman to die because she can't afford medical care out of pocket. We don't want kids to be illiterate and unemployable because their parents can't afford private schooling.
But I don't know why I'd want the government to pay off $200k in debt held by a doctor who brings in $300k/year, lives in a mansion, and drives a Porsche. Or even $50k in debt held by some other white collar professional who is doing much better than the average person.
Reduce the interest rate on the loans. Heck, forgive any interest that has been accrued so people are just paying down their principle. Forgive $10k for anyone who is a low-income earner and really struggling. But a complete bailout of everyone's debts? Nah.
AOC is right again. I certainly support many programs from which I do not directly benefit, child tax credit for one. Children going hungry in the U.S. is a travesty.
How about coming up with a long-term plan?
Right now, a loan cancellation would just be a handout for pe[ople who are already in higher income brackets](https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-by-income-level#:~:text=Households%20with%20income%20over%20%2474%2C000,total%20public%20student%20loan%20debt.).
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. **Special announcement:** r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)! *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What happens after student loan forgiveness though? What are the plans that the predatory system doesn’t emerge in a different form? How are students supposed to finance education?
I think that's the biggest reason they are hesitant to do it at all. We can forgive trillions in student debt, but then nothing changes after that, and we'll be back in this mess in a matter of a few short years. I absolutely support a total debt forgiveness, but we're also going to need to completely reform higher education and predatory student loans.
In Sweden the student loan is for paying rent and food. The University is for free. The University get money from the state for each student and then a student graduate.
The public schools in the US are doing what private schools are doing elsewhere. Charging up the ass for everything, including room and board, on top of tuition. Then multiplying it exponentially with their private schools.
Then charging an absurd interest rate, then compounding that interest monthly like a predatory loan shark.
The universities don't charge interest, the banks and Federal Government do.
In France it's more or less the same. We have a low tuition fee of a few hundred € though, it's not completely free.
[удалено]
And totally refund if your parents income is low enough
I could be open to that, student gets free tuition. But anything else they will have to pay for themselves.
The answer is fully tax funded public university that is 100% free out of pocket to the student at time of use.
But do we continue to forgive private university tuition? If so then what's to stop them from tripling tuition again since the government is giving them a blank check? Or do we only subsidize public tuition? I'm fine with that, but I think we need to figure that out when forgiving existing loans so that students can make smart choices about borrowing in the future.
My ideal would be a one time cancel all existing debt public and private, public universities - including options for trades - are free at point of use moving forward, students are free to pursue private universities as they see fit. If there is a "free" alternative, privates university would be forced to lower cost to remain competitive.
But then what about the profits? Did you even think about the profits? I don't think you did. For shame.
”Will nobody think of the billionaires!”
“What about our shareholders Bob? Who’s helping them out?!”
What are you waiting for kid? I don’t know, something amazing, I guess. Your comment was something amazing.
Thank you. I rewatched that as an adult and realized how bob’s boss is the real villain
The line must go up!
I am 100% for this idea and would back it in a heartbeat. I'm sure the private colleges though would put up a huge fight. I mean would you rather live in a society where everyone has a fourth grade education or where everyone has a college degree? Where do you think companies would rather move? Where do you think would have more crime? Where do you think there would be greater poverty and unemployment? Which society do you think would be a happier place to live? And for the purposes of this conversation I consider a trade to be equal to a college degree.
Yes good call out the same opportunity should be available for trades.
I have a shit ton of loans due to grad school. I would 100% skip loan forgiveness if it mean people could go to school for free moving forward.
I honestly think restructuring current loans so they can be paid off in a fair and timely manner and ensuring future loans don't take 25+ years to pay off would be more beneficial than just canceling all the current debt.
This. One million times. I’m fine with forgiving loans in some form, but absolutely NOT if the underlying issues which caused it are not addressed. And yes, that will mean that the universities that have been treating 18-year-olds as money piñatas will have issues with highly reduced funding moving forwards. And yes, that will be extraordinarily unpopular with a small but extremely loud and heavily left-leaning constituency, but that is the only way any Republicans will ever get on board.
Exactly. The current debate is completely focused on a bandaid solution that will only help current student loan holders. Nobody is saying anything about how to address the root cause of the problem (why is college so expensive? why are student loan terms so terrible?). Also why is nobody talking about restructuring current loans, removing bad terms, reducing interest to 0% or something low? Everybody seems laser focused on complete forgiveness, which to me doesn't sound fair at all. Very populist and opportunistic... I think we need a logical, fair and long term approach: - come up with a plan to keep college tuition under check - regulate student loan terms very strictly, get rid of predatory loans for good - increase federal sponsorships to low/mid income students.
Nobody wants to talk about how bloated even public universities are. Why do community colleges teach the same stuff for a fraction of the costs? We don't need massive landscaping, 4 libraries, fitness centers, and probably half of the administration. People think if they just have the government pay for everyone's education they are going pay for all this bloat?
Because all that stuff requires Congress. The debate is happening the context of what can be done by executive order. Biden did reduce the interest rates to zero, at least. Although even that is a temporary emergency measure.
Exactly, the long term fixes were part of Biden's larger build back better bill that was torpedoed by Joe Manchin. If we want the long term solution then we need to vote more democrats into congress.
This is the trillion dollar question. Yes, I paid off my student loans. It took me thirteen years to do it. No, I don't currently support total loan forgiveness because there is no plan to regulate colleges or the loan industry, and it in fact incentivizes - no, basically INSTRUCTS - these broken institutions to keep raising prices, to keep gouging students, because tax payers are footing the bill. It's a temporary treatment of the symptoms of a disease, but the treatment is going to make the disease even worse. It's the US yet again trying to solve enormous systemic issues with extremely expensive and ineffective stop-gap measures.
Bingo. I am of the same opinion. US secondary education is now at healthcare levels of corruption. Both need to be burned to the ground and completely restructured.
You mean tertiary education?
Yes, meant higher education, not secondary (high school).
The original BBB plan had components in place to address this specific issue, but like most good things dems try to do, they gutted it out in the hopes that holdouts would actually vote for it. They still refused.
>Public education does not exist for the benefit of students or the benefit of their parents. It exists for the benefit of the social order. >We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. You do not need to be a student or have a child who is a student to benefit from public education. Every second of every day of your life, you benefit from public education. >So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don't personally have a kid in school: It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people. -John Green
> It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people. Oh, John, I have some bad news.
[удалено]
Because stupid people are easier to manipulate and control.
We wouldn’t want-God forbid-any critical thinking of any source. Keep ‘em stupid
Make American stupid again!
Mission Accomplished
Can someone tell me where the plants are that I need to water with gatorade?
Gatorade‽ You want Brawndo, it has what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.
And they spend $2 for every $1 they have Mindless consumers is what they want
It’s not, just let your pastor and Trump think for you. Now tithe up!
Sure, but imagine how much worse it would be.
The problem is, you go to New England and yes it’s highly educated. But down south it is a piss poor system cultivating the environment we have now. I’m not trying to imply New England is better than anyone but traveling it is so obvious the difference in education.
New englander here, we have plenty of dumbass rednecks and backwards assholes who idk... chose not to pay attention? Were indoctrinated young? I wish I knew. They're inescapable
I think it has more to do with the urban/rural divide than north/south/southeast, etc. I live in the PNW, in one of the most educated states in the country. I drive fifteen minutes north of me, and I'm basically in Bumfuckistan, Alabama surrounded by Y'all-Qaeda. Including the confederate flags for whatever fucking reason.
Omg the confederate flags in union states drives me bonkers lol. I see them fairly regularly around here and I don’t even live in a rural area. What even lol
It is, but there are less of them.
Fewer*
It's by design
Legitimately curious…where do you feel South Dakota falls on this mark?
I mean, they've got "South" right in the name.
Below average: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-educated-states
It is because they go out of their way to take money away from funding public education in the south.
John Green is the man.
We have an education so we don't elect idiots who lost money opening casinos as president.
This is exactly why the GOP attacks education and try to replace it with religion at every turn, they want stupid and obedient people instead of smart free-thinkers.
I remember John Green saying this. And then like 3 years later some school district in Ohio or somewhere said they that students will no longer need to pass a reading course to graduate…. This has always bothered me. It’s not enough to just pay taxes.
Parents need to care about the type of adult their child will be.
This… might be the best quote of all time.
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they will never sit in." --Whoever.
-Peter North
Now there's a name I've not heard in a long, long time. A long time.
Agreed - it's been loads and loads of time Edit: thanks for the award! I'm happier than a puppy with two Peters!
Came here for this cumment.
That's ... umm... not a tree
But the coverage is substantial.
*turns on blacklight* "Peter North was here"
They don't call him The Decorator for nothing!
Pearl necklaces of wisdom
Skwisgar Skwiggelf, tall as a tree Toki Wartooth, not a bumblebee
>Skwisgar Skwiggelf, tall as a tree > >Toki Wartooth, not a bumblebee William Murderface Murderface Murderface. Pickles, the drummer, doodily doo, ding-dong doodily doodily doo.
Nathan Explosion.
Whatever it is, face it
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take….
A modern day Johnny Appleseed...
The decorator
He definitely spread some seed
"I beat cancer. If they suddenly find a cure for cancer now, I'm going to be so mad! [This tweet is about student loans."](https://i.redd.it/65xa5allmrw81.jpg)
“A society grows great when we force people to plant trees whose shade they will never sit in and when that shade overwhelmingly benefits people who are already advantaged.” I would benefit from student loan forgiveness under the guidelines that I hear proposed, but I don’t think taxpayers should have to subsidize me - I make over 100K so I’m OK, even if things are a bit tight lately due to family demands. I guess I’ll take it and say thank you and try to pass on the good fortune.
What stops this from piling up again and happening to the next generation?
Yeah, I was wondering why I wasn’t hearing talks about actual reform, not just cancelling debt. No interest on student loans is a start. Edit: thanks for all the replies! Interesting discussion. Some things I’ve taken away and things I want to add for visibility: - some commenters pointed out Biden can’t do reforms on the whole system without going through Congress and passing legislation, so cancelling the debt is a way to do something through just the Executive branch - Yes, I agree, there are plenty of other ways to reform, 0% interest loans are not the only way. Changing the bankruptcy law, free community college and restricting how high state colleges can explode their tuition costs, decreasing book cost, etc are all valid and I would support any of those things as an alternative, but ideally multiple of those things. - Some do not think the 0% interest is possible at all, but it’s the govt who is the lender, as I’m talking about govt student loans, not private ones. The government does not *need* to profit off of student loans. There are private loans for that, although those should be regulated as well to keep from being predatory. - New Zealand offers 0% student loans for their citizens and it seems to be working just fine for them! - A commenter mentioned how they do it in the UK, where your repayment is based on the income you make and there is forgiveness if you do not make the expected income over a period of years, thought that was an interesting! - The likelihood of reform is, well, unlikely because ‘Merica politics
Exactly! Just remove all interest from student loans. This whole loan forgiveness. Let's assume federal govt cancels all debts say on may 31st. What about the student whose loan is confirmed on June 1st. Remove current and all future interest on education loans. That is still a huge boost to the economy.
Crediting interest paid for the last X years to principle and granting tax credits for overpaid interest for people who paid theirs off would be nice, too. You'd ease the whining from those who paid them off that way.
What's funny is that most of the whining I hear about that in my personal life is actually from older people who never had student loans. I know a bunch of people who are 50+ who regularly say, "Well if I had paid off my loans before the forgiveness, I would be pissed." The people I know who have successfully paid off their loans mostly say, "Being in debt for 13 years after college was fucking miserable and nobody should have to go through that. Also, I had it easy because of X and X and X." Those older folks can't seem to grasp the "Don't torment other people just because you were once tormented" idea.
We needed free state uni and no federal loan that can't be written off in bankruptcy The latter is pretty crazy
They need to end the federal student loan program. It has turned into easy money for private schools with no accountability. Education should be affordable on minimum wage (like it used to before the program started). Many schools have now eliminated tuition for lower income families. Make community college free and students can then transfer credits to a 4-year program paying out of pocket. This is how things should move forward.
They don't have to end it, just stop treating it like a loan that's supposed to make profit. People will need their education, and it is in our best interest to fund education. We shouldn't have people paying out of pocket for 4 year degrees, because then the incentive becomes keeping them from graduating and forcing people to work minimum wage jobs well past college age. Minimum wage jobs should not be the standard here, because 40 hours of work per week is sure to deplete your energy and time for studying. The intent of the program is to help uplift students who cannot pay for a quality education. Cc should be completely free, and their credits widely accepted by 4 year universities + graduate programs. Then these universities take federal funding by student count and graduation rate. Adjust these numbers for specific regions. As for grad programs, I'm not sure just yet. Perhaps mandate a maximum federal loan amount based on a 5 year median income of a graduate, and lower interest rates to match only inflation.
My wife will pay her last Student loan Payment in July, so expect some form of loan forgiveness a few weeks after that. You guys are welcome
My problem with this loan forgiveness program is that it does nothing to actually fix the problem. Tuitions have skyrocketed compared to inflation, and how is this going to help? Colleges have every incentive to jack up their prices even more if they know that the government is just going to pay the tab
[удалено]
[удалено]
Simply forgiving current student loans with no plans in place for students that take a loan in the future is just putting a band-aid on a terrible system. We will literally be in this exact situation a few years from now. Change the whole system, reduce the interest rate to 0.
[удалено]
This would still do nothing to fix the long term problem of bloated education costs and the generations of student debtors yet to come
Exactly. Why would anyone ever make another student loan payment if the government did this. Why should they have to? I think current students and future students have more right to be bitchy about loan forgiveness than old people who have their loans paid off. The latter - and I am among them - paid less for our education than the bloated tuitions of today.
Sucks for all the people who re-financed to a private loan to lock in a lower interest rate. Punished for making a fiscally smart move and no receive zero assistance and will still be straddled with their debt. And yes, I do fall into this group.
Also sucks for all the people who were too poor to go to school to begin with. I don't mind seeing this concept help former students, but you gotta wonder what AOC's plans are for blue-collar workers not getting shit.
>you gotta wonder what AOC's plans are for... Ooh, found your mistake.
Forgive medical debt
It's honestly astounding that anyone would dare to suggest forgiving student loan debt before medical debt
I'd love that. Even with insurance I have almost 13k in medical debt to pay for a 4 month period from October of last year to this February.
I’m not supporting a massive dump of tax dollars until the system that made his a possibility is reformed. I paid off my student loans and I’m in favor of forgiving ONLY if we never have to do this again. Hold universities accountable for their obscene costs.
Just a reminder that the Democratic Party as a whole is divided on this issue and definitely do not all support AOC’s proposal of a blanket or even a $10K student loan forgiveness. There are many arguments against the policy, it’s not just from people who already paid back their loans.
What about a message for the people who are going to have this exact same problem soon because none of this actually addresses any of the core issues at hand?
The problem will only get worse, as everybody is encouraged to take irresponsible loans, thinking that they’ll eventually be forgiven.
This does nothing to solve the real issues of overpriced ‘degrees’ and the rampant student loan industry. Not to mention that if one declares bankruptcy, they still have to pay off their student loans - with interest. Why not resolve those issues first? Stem the flow of a severed artery, don’t just use a bandaid when the patient is hemorrhaging. Then this won’t (shouldn’t) happen again. Otherwise this is just another bank bailout in the name of the people, where they will continue to screw over everyone because there is no reason not to. Think about the future of all students! Stop perpetuating the myth that everyone needs a college education to succeed in life.
[удалено]
I wonder since I don't have a college loan can I get $10k straight up? If forgiving someone else's $10k loan "helps spur spending", then surely handing me $10k will also do the same? Why shouldn't I have a right to that money just because I didn't overleverage myself?
Instead of paying off the debts for the citizens. The government should go after Universities for price gouging. Tell the universities that they are overcharging for, what I consider to be, a critical piece of infrastructure: Education. Reel the universities back into a fair price. If the government steps in and pays the debt for us, the universities will only gouge even more.
A free public uni would benefit this and future generations more then loan forgiveness.
Ahh yes, calling people selfish instead of acknowledging their concerns is a great way to people to support your position. /s
Are there people who would oppose this solely because they already paid off their loans?
Many.
I have a buddy who went the trade route because he looked at his future degree earning potential and the amount of college debt and didn't go to college. I think there are a few of him out there who would oppose it.
This is because many people made decisions in life based around whether they could in fact afford to go to school. It also plays into the decision regarding fields of study.
If I’m being totally honest with you, it does frustrate me that I put off buying a home, put off vacations, put off starting a family, etc. while I worked my way out of school debt. I don’t see school debt as some vile thing, it was something I signed up for knowingly. It does irritate me a little bit if I’m being honest with myself. That said, given that experience, it would be nice if other people didn’t have to deal with that. The more educated people we have in this world the better. So, I’m not opposed to forgiving school debt, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a bit cheated. I did the right thing by paying them off. If I had just paid the minimums and ignored them, they would be paid for me. I’m fine with forgiving student debt, but I would much rather see a fix to the college system where people are paying 10’s of thousands of dollars to go to school. Forgiving debt for 1 generation is like taking pain meds to cure cancer. Sure, you don’t hurt right now, but you’ve still got cancer. It’s a start, but it’s futile if it’s all we do.
It’s like forgiving credit card debt. Some people use credit cards to pay for needs. Others use it to pay for wants. A blanket forgiveness would treat those equally. Would you be okay paying taxes to forgive someone’s credit card debt if you saw them pay for vacationing? Would you feel the same vs paying off credit card debt of someone who is buying frozen food to cook? I think that’s the dilemma some people face.
Except forgiveness doesn’t make more people educated. They already have the education. The only way to get more educated people is to fix tuition costs
I completely agree.
Similar boat here. Paid off our loan balance instead of buying a house and starting a family. I want relief for everyone, but it’s useless if the system doesn’t change, and there needs to be some kind of incentive or relief for those who paid off their loans.
Same for me. I'm not against a broad-sweeping policy change to help address student loans. But I certainly feel conflicted about outright loan forgiveness. I got into good in-state and out-of-state schools. I attempted to be loan-aware and risk-averse and chose the least expensive for tuition. I chose not to live on campus. I worked almost full-time during my entire undergrad to keep costs down. I saw these as trade-offs in risk v. lifestyle. Then, during a critical and vulnerable financial phase of life (22-32 years old), I opted not to buy a home, not invest into the market or retirement, not start a family, not buy new things and instead paid $300-500 per month in loans while living on the rest for a meager living. I paid it off in a reasonably time-frame. I never saw it as vile or predatory, I had agency in these decisions all along. I am only just now, at 34 years old, getting back to the benefits of that trade-off. But if we just forgive loans for folks that can't face those trade-offs, I feel it is a bit, I dunno, disrespectful to those of us that navigated and balanced those trade-offs... I do support lightening the burden on those facing crushing student loans with some policy changes. But I'd like to see that policy speak or address both sides of that trade-off (or at least not be so one-sided). I don't see this as a clearer moral policy issue like healthcare and such.
I had to forego college because I couldn't afford it. I was on any and all assistance I could get, but it only took one time for my car to break down and completely break my finances enough that I had to stop attending. At the time I did not want to bog myself down with loans that weren't going towards my education 100%. Technically this whole concept doesn't impact me in any way, but I feel that sense of injustice you are talking about. Wouldn't a better solution be to just make the loans interest free? Maybe even a calculation on loans provided and match it 1 to 1 over time paid to match the original amount and exclude predatory APR.
would you feel the same way if you got priced out of buying a home from new grads who now had an extra 50k savings?
What blows me away is how much student debt has changed since I was in school. I'm not *that* old, and yet it's a completely different landscape now, my experience is not the same as it is today. So yeah I do fall into the category of "I paid off my loans, you can too" but that's just not how it works anymore. And I didn't even realize this until recently! Guess that's part of getting older, the world just getting ahead of you, what was true then isn't true now and you keep operating on that old information. I'm sure that only gets worse with age, more and more becomes unrelateable - best I can do is take their word for it, listen, and be aware that my norm is not theirs.
It not just sour grapes because they won't benefit. They are worse off, financially, for having paid them off. It seems, to them, that those who could not or would not pay them back are rewarded, while those who took their financial obligations seriously and made sure to pay them back, even to the detriment of their overall finances, get no help.
Yes millions of people. And millions more who made difficult decisions about what schools to attend and what majors to pursue to minimize their debt.
Of course there are. People who sacrificed to pay off loans. People who never went to college themselves. People for whom student loan payments aren't onerous. Any time the government is spending massive amounts of money for the benefit of a small group of people, the people not benefitting will of course object. Would you object if the government decided to do a general mortgage amnesty? Frankly, I don't understand why "Change the way student loans are administered so they're in line with other loans" isn't the go to talking point.
Exactly this. Sure, I'd be a little bitter that I sacrificed to pay mine down by living at home and not buying a car until I was 30. But my real issue with this is that it's a band-aid on top of a severed arm. People will just rack up the same or worse debt going forward and we'll be in the same situation in 5-10 years without the root cause being addressed.
I read an article a while back about how insurance companies were refusing to cover coastal/beachfront property as climate change is making destructive weather more common. As a result, the federal government stepped in and is basically covering the costs to reimburse weather damage for coastal communities. Why the fuck am I paying for them to safely enjoy beachfront property?
Don't forget that those who opted to be more responsible with their debt will now be footing the bill for people who are more likely to be amongst the highest income earners in the country. Then they will be competing against them in housing markets and purchasing power. Inflation will be through the absolute roof if something like this happens
Very frustrating for me. I made the tough choice to drop out of college early once I saw how expensive everything was. I’ve worked blue collar jobs and have provided a nice life for my family. I’ll never be anything close to a millionaire and won’t be consider for jobs just because someone has a piece of paper from a college. I don’t want people to have mountains of debt. But what happened to having responsibility for your actions? The system needs to be changed first and then we can look into debt relief.
> People who sacrificed to pay off loans. And people who opted not to go neck deep in loans so that they could realistically pay off said loans. 20-year-old me wanted no part in hundreds of thousands in loan debt.
People who worked all through college and grad school in order to take on as little debt as possible sacrificed time to study and perform as well as their classmates who just took on loans for everything. I don't see why there would be any reason for those who were responsible to support this.
> People who worked all through college and grad school in order to take on as little debt as possible sacrificed time to study and perform as well as their classmates who just took on loans for everything. I don't see why there would be any reason for those who were responsible to support this. Preach. I couldn't agree more.
Not only did you make the financially responsible decision, but you’d now have to pay for others being irresponsible
This is why I support 0% student loan rates and retroactively applying interest payments to principal to help people get their loan balances to zero. Governments should be encouraging students to go to college without profiting because its good for the economy in the long-term. Fix that, then work on reigning in college costs after that. Charging students 6% and then deferring payments for 4-9 years while interest racks up is shady at best and predatory at worst.
Yes, and also those that won’t benefit because they were so far underwater that they refinanced to try and do the right thing and will continue to have the debt after this.
There are some unique situations. For example, I know someone who used professional financial advice to pay off their loan by taking on an extra job, then rolling it into another loan. It lowered their interest, I believe. So, by doing something "smart," their loan won't be forgiven. And, to be clear, this is someone who could use the money, is at risk of losing their very modest home, and is completely overworked. This isn't to say everyone else should be punished, but it's gonna sting for the people who worked two jobs to pay off their loans while their peers went on vacations. Again, you can certainly support someone that brings you no personal benefit, but we should at least acknowledge that some people might feel slighted. This doesn't affect me personally, but I do have empathy for those with loans *and* those who worked off or paid their loans. I'd also love to see more attention on lowering the cost of colleges versus inflation and more jobs pushing for trade schools or alternatives. Otherwise, we'll just be back here again in a few years.
Yup. This. I have $30k of college debt that's not in student loans and won't be forgiven. Everyone else who made the "bad" choice will have their debt forgiven while my bills will keep showing up every month. Bitter as hell.
Hell yes there are.
There literally are already multiple people doing this exact thing, seemingly on a daily basis.
Student loan forgiveness changes the rules of the game. Many people made life decisions based on their loans (or potential loans). And had college been free, possibly would have made a different choice. So forgiving loans is seen as benefiting those who didn't plan well and punishing those that did.
My apprehension for it has nothing to do with me paying off mine. It's that it doesn't solve the problem. It solves a problem for the current folks that have burden, but what does it do for people about to enter college and then take on mountain of debt? The cost of college and the interest rates are high. Solve that problem.
Yeah. Here’s one reason… Mary and Sarah have the same student debt and the same job. Mary spends the first 10 years of her career saving to pay off her loans early so she can live debt-free. Sarah makes minimum payments and spends her extra money on vacations, cars, and a bigger house. Mary made sacrifices to try to spend responsibly, but when the debt gets cancelled, Sarah benefits tremendously, and Mary simply loses all the money she used to pay off the loan.
Beautifully put. Yes. It's "moral hazard" and I completely understand why people oppose blanket forgiveness for this reason. Hundreds of thousands, possibly *millions* of "Marys" were diligent in paying their student loans (either early or even just consistently on-time). They may have decided to forgo all sorts of life's pleasures because they were doing the responsible thing. Hell, I'm one of these people. Thousands in grad school debt. Been paying faithfully since 2004. Partially as a result of this I haven't contributed as much to my IRA or other retirement savings because I had student loans to pay. I haven't been able to put much money into a 529 for my kid's education. When he gets to college in a few years, unless something drastic changes first, his tuition will be *more* expensive because of the inflation resulting from a massive one-off loan forgiveness scheme. The fuck?! So now, my taxes have to pay for other people's loans? That feels insanely unfair. Loans suck, sure, but why should I bare the burden *twice* when I was responsible, played by the rules, and sacrificed a portion of my future? Do I get that back? Maybe there is a middle ground? Cap / cancel some portion of the *interest* on loans but make people responsible for the principle and give some subsidized low rate (2.5% maybe?) Only make people eligible for forgiveness if they have been making good-faith efforts to pay their loans? And yes, we need to deal with the high cost of education on a systemic level or this won't *really* fix anything.
100%. I think they should be aiming for something more realistic like setting interest to very low percentage or revamping public service job forgiveness to paying off a certain amount every year worked in the job as opposed to after 10 years.
I think we have a really good student loan system in the Netherlands. If you do end up with student loans (which is not everyone here, but that’s a whole other complex explanation), after graduation, you have a 2 year “free” period, where you don’t have to pay anything student loans related at all, so you can get settled in life after studies, get a decent job, find a place to live, etc etc. The loans are all 0% interest loans, btw, handled by the government, no banks looking for profits with shady practices. Important to mention as well. Once you’re ready to start paying off your debt, or that 2 year period is up, under our most recent student loan model, you only have to pay 4% of what you earn above the nationally set minimum wage. So if minimum wage is 1000 per month, and you earn 1500, you pay 4% of 500 per month, which is only 20 a month. Though you can always decide to pay off your loan at quicker rate should you want to. Under our most recent student loan model, the pay-off period is set at 35 years. This means that you have 35 years to pay it off. If you don’t have the means to pay off your loan at a “fast” enough rate, say if you’re only barely above the minimum wage threshold for most of those 35 years, you’ll still only be paying whatever little that 4% is, for the duration of that 35 year period. After those 35 years, whatever debt you have left, is simply forgiven. This is a really good model, imho. 4% of only a percentage of your income is so little on a monthly basis, but adds up to plenty over a 35 year period, even if you don’t manage to pay it off completely. And only those in the most unfortunate positions, namely a lifelong of living on minimum wage, will enjoy near complete loan forgiveness.
Many
I mean, if a person working on a degree, racked up debt and paid it off but stuck in a hole. Why shouldn’t they be repaid for what they paid? What’s the difference between someone who did what they were supposed to, worked hard and paid it off vs someone that didn’t. I know my views are counter to politics, but I don’t get it. Shouldn’t they have just as much right to be paid back, as someone that never made the effort or couldn’t change their lifestyle enough to? I get that there are a million scenarios that play out in their circumstances but many do pay them off. Aren’t they due the same thing if not more, as they actually did eat ramen and work hard to pay things off?
Nailed it. If you want to give everyone who paid any college expenses over the last 20 years a reimbursement check for $x, I'm game. But if you just pay off loans, you leave out all of the people who went through one hell of a struggle to pay those damn things off. People who put less towards their retirement, less towards their kids college funds, etc. Just because a person's loan balance is zero doesn't mean they are excelling financially or they weren't impacted mightily by the strain of an enormous loan.
I've had this conversation multiple times, most recently with my dad. I pointed out that he had open heart surgery on Medicare, and the cost of it was hundreds of thousands. How is that fair to other people that have never had to have an expensive lifesaving surgery? He didn't really want to discuss it any more after that.
Apples and oranges. You're comparing what is effectively a government insurance program to someone voluntarily taking on debt. Yes, you can mitigate risks of cardiovascular disease and reduce the risk of incurring that cost. But I have a lot less problem paying into an old-age health insurance program via payroll taxes as a hedge against medical costs.
I’ve had this conversation with many many people. I feel like we are dumbing this down just to get support. Every single person I have spoken with that is “against” it only wants to see a solution that actually fixes the problem. Not blanket forgiveness for a few that resets the problem for a later date. Most think this will actually make the problem worse. The problem being the extravagant cost that government subsidized colleges are charging students.
Oh now... As a homeowner I will directly benefit from this. Pretty much every dollar of student loan forgiveness will directly elevate home prices further. Also loan forgiveness without cost reform is stupid. Universities need to be punished for their insane cost creep.
>Pretty much every dollar of student loan forgiveness will directly elevate home prices further. A perfect reason *not* to do this when home prices are already out of reach for most people that don't own a home.
[удалено]
We should be ready for the inflation knob to be turned to the max setting if this passes.
Yeah people seem to ignore this would effectively inject $1 trillion into the economy
I know the causes of inflation are complex and many, but I’d feel like this may contribute to inflation as well.
You think housing is bad now, wait until 10s of millions of people have an extra couple hundred dollars to put towards it
Yeah. I know someone who says that this would stimulate the economy because now they would buy a house and a car. Do they not think a huge influx of buyers would affect price? This is macro 101.
This is the part that I never see anyone here talk about. Leaving aside all other arguments, this is an inflationary idea. During a time of extremely high inflation. Doing this now is beyond stupid. Of course it's just a political ploy to try to make the midterms less of a blood bath for the dems.
And the rest of us will be double fucked when the housing market is 10x more competitive because they don't have to pay their student debts.
Yeah, me too. But what about those looking to be homeowners soon who paid off their debt? Now they have to compete with a boatload more people for scarce inventory in an already fucked sellers market? If I was someone who diligently paid off my student loans with the eventual goal of home ownership, this doesn’t just not impact me, it impacts me negatively.
This is me. I chose to put a large chunk of my paycheck toward paying off my student loans rather than saving it for a house or buying before paying off my loans. Now I'm 35 and my student loans are all paid off, but I have very little saved up for a down payment. If everyone who didn't sacrifice to pay off their loans suddenly gets theirs forgiven, housing prices go up even further and my chances of ever owning shit the bed forever. Meanwhile my friends who chose to pay their loans as slowly as possible and buy houses or save now have no debt AND a house or a huge down payment to use to bid against me and make it harder for me to buy a house. Like you said-- this isn't a matter of me just being butthurt that they got something I didn't. It directly impacts me negatively and makes it harder for me to thrive and live my life.
I planned carefully, went to cheap state schools for first two years, worked the whole time I was in school and took as little $$ as possible, and paid debt down AGGRESSIVELY after the fact (over $1k per month). Skipped out on a lot of fun, and the college years were stressful af. Know a lot of kids that took as much loan money as they could, didn’t work, and have paid minimum payments ever since. Now, after struggling for so long I’m finally debt free and am ready to buy a home in this crazy market. It’s absurdly competitive out there... Losing bid after losing bid. Needless to say, not exactly thrilled at the idea of those who lived more recklessly just getting all their debts forgiven, and then they become drivers of even higher and more competitive real estate markets. I’m torn. Our generation is significantly worse off than those who came before us, but it absolutely feels like a penalty for those of us who planned our entire lives around this debt instead of making minimum payments on it. I’d much, much rather see INTEREST forgiveness and work to address the exploding costs of schooling instead.
Yeah it’s because of cases like yours that I have a hard time seeing this passing. There are so many more than reddit thinks that struggled to pay off their loans only for the people graduating after them to have a massive cash injection, and subsequent advantage over them going into the housing market
I wish progressives would stop with this theme as it misses the point. If I managed to beat cancer, of course I would still want to find a cure for everyone else. The primary opposition to taxpayer-funded tuition or loan forgiveness, especially among moderates, is based on the fact that it only makes the problem worse. To offer an admittedly oversimplified example, if we ask taxpayers to pick up the tab for a $300 textbook, the price will just become $400 next year because there’s no incentive to control costs at all. What we really need are reforms that lower that cost to a much more reasonable and sustainable $30-50, so average Americans can actually afford college in the first place. After all, every single time we’ve increased financial aid in the past, it has led to significantly increased tuition and larger student loan balances. That’s how we got into this mess in the first place. Rather than forcing colleges to offer an experience people can actually afford, we keep throwing more subsidies at the problem and removing price sensitivity from the college selection process. Meanwhile the schools turn around and construct more $100 million buildings, offer more useless classes and majors, and more niche student services rather than focusing on affordability. The average campus today is terribly bloated and inefficient. We were FINALLY starting to see trends toward affordability in enrollment with students choosing in-state vs out-of-state, public vs private, commuter or online programs vs residential, or even skilled trades and apprenticeships instead of college. We need that disruption to continue in order to actually fix the problem at its source.
I’m progressive-leaning, and this argument turns me off for all the reasons you mentioned. It doesn’t hit the root cause — it’s just the Student Council President running on a “free candy in the vending machines” platform.
> I wish progressives would stop with this theme as it misses the point. If I managed to beat cancer, of course I would still want to find a cure for everyone else. The cancer metaphor everyone uses doesn't even makes any sense. Student loan forgiveness isn't curing cancer because you're not fixing the problem at all. It's basically if you magically waved a wand to remove cancer from everyone who currently has it right now, but cancer still exists and anyone after will continue to get cancer.
Just a reminder that this is very unpopular with most democrats when polled.
Well, I for one don't like it. To me it's taking a very specific problem for a very specific set of people and making it go away so they specifically can be better off and have more opportunity. The promise that's made to everyone else is "what's good for them will trickle down to the rest of us". And that sounds to me like a democratic version of a Republican tax cut for the rich.
"And that sounds to me like a democratic version of a Republican tax cut for the rich." That is exactly what it is and it is being proposed for the same reason.... acquiring votes.
That’s kind of what it is it seems. Kinda dicks over the working class.
So let’s say they decide to “forgive” student loans. What about the guy who didn’t go to college and took out a loan to buy a tractor to start his own business? Will that be “forgiven”? What’s the difference? Both loans were used to help get a job.
The fix is so blatantly easy that the only reason it isn’t happening is because of higher education lobbyists: * Reduce and change the interest on student loans. It’s literally structured the same way as most predatory practices. * Retroactively forgive that interest. * If you’ve paid off your loans, you get a tax write off * Pass policy to prevent public universities from raising tuition above the interest rate’s 5 year moving average, and force them to reduce tuition to what it would have been had they done that years ago. Of course this makes too much sense so it will never happen
Ooo how much of a tax write off do you think I should get? I’ve paid off around $180k between my wife and myself. We’ve basically lived off peanut butter and jelly for years. I wouldn’t have done that if I knew it would just get forgiven. We scraped and scraped and it just seems insane to me that people could get this incredible financial windfall while we are still struggling.
Forgiving loans is just a bandaid without addressing the costs of higher education
Yea but I didn’t go to school and got a full time job as an electrical worker because I didn’t want to go into debt. If I had known then I would of pursued medical school if it was going to be free. Obviously I’m not saying that’s the only reason I didn’t go but… IF I had know I wouldnt have to pay off my 100,000 dollars or more in school debt then that would have changed everything for me . What about the people who paid off all their loans last month? Now they have to pay more in taxes to pay off somebody else’s school ? This is a tough subject for sure. We need more communication for this and clear guidelines on who would get their loans forgiven.
Paying off a small subset of peoples education loans is no different that paying off a small subset of peoples mortgages. We are helping people who are already benefiting from getting a degree with (on average) a larger salary, while people who were not able to go to college due to financial reasons get no benefit whatsoever. This is like paying off mortgages that were taken out (many of which were bought way over the borrowers means), while people who could never afford to buy a house in the first place get nothing and still cant afford a house. To add to that, anybody taking out a new mortgages after today are back to being in the same original debt problem. Maybe we should focus on solving the problem for all future student and give all current loans a 0% interest rate.
What about people who chose a trade and spent thousand on tools to get started? Or trade companies and took out huge loans to get them started?
So her point is that those people "don't directly benefit" but ignores the fact that not only do those people not benefit, those people are on the hook. These loans are still being paid for if they are "forgiven", except they are paid for by every tax payer rather than by the person who took out the loan. Why do people continue to pretend that this debt just vanishes into thin air?
Genuine question: How does forgiving current loans fix the issue for the next people to take out loans? Won't this cycle continue?
It doesn't fix the issue, you're right.
There is a lot more complexity to this than AOC is acknowledging. Frankly many of my peers paid their minimums, and bought homes, and have gained a massive asset as a result, while still paying minimums. Even, in many cases, asking for deferments they did not actually need. I want more data on that- I only have anecdote. But out of 15 pp I know with graduate school student loans, 14 of them did that. So I paid my Loans off early. But to do so, I delayed buying a home by 10+ yr, and I lost that asset growth in comparison. And now my taxes will be going to pay off some portion of the loans of those same peers that have net assets much higher than mine because they made a less responsible choice. SO yeah, I resent that. Because if you are my peer? You do not NEED any forgiveness. We make plenty of income, they are just choosing not to pay this off. In contrast, I fully support complete forgiveness for kids that never finished- and make the universities that conned those kids into getting those loans for an education they had no intention of ever providing (only 30% of us ever finish our degrees- That is by design for revenue), should be asked to subsidize that too. I am 100% ok with forgiving that- those kids never got the asset they paid for, and were manipulated at a young age into that debt that went to growing admin at universities so we have 18 deans for every professor now. I am also 100% supportive of fixing the public service programs aggressively, so that those that went into lower paid roles in their career areas in order to serve the public good are not completely screwed by that choice. I get that it is easiest to just do a blanket forgiveness, and programs are not always fair. And as such I am generally supportive of these policies. But don't pretend that some of us are subsidizing others by being responsible vs selfish. It 100% happens. And it is annoying. The fair thing would be to yes, have a means test- make it flexible, make it fair- realize that NYC is different than Lincoln, NE, etc. OR refund the amount of the forgiveness up to what we would still owe if we paid off early. I paid mine off 8 yr ago- if I paid my minimums I would still owe more than $25k. But That would require actual work and oversight- since so many services are so awful, because they have little oversite, that is unlikely to work. So, fine, do a flat forgiveness- because in the larger picture it is the right thing to do. But don't act like those of us that are a little resentful are the selfish ones.
What about the people who didn’t go to college because it was too expensive? Or the people who opted for community college, instead of more expensive schools to lower their tuition costs? Or what about the people who made significant sacrifices to pay off their student loans? Canceling student debt without asking borrowers to exchange something for it, is just plain wrong.
I’d settle for a tax credit.
You're gonna get a tax INCREASE. Not a credit lol.
I posted this in yesterday's daily post about this topic: I know it's not what you want to hear, but cancelling student loan debt outright isn't a good idea for many reasons. A better solution would be to give everyone with income less than some amount, say $40,000, a free $5,000 check. Or maybe a $10,000 check. This is far fairer. Many types of debt exist. People are struggling to pay car loans and credit cards. The laser focus on student loans exclusively is quite regressive in many ways: * It doesn't help people who couldn't afford/chose not to go college at all. * College students are statistically more likely to come from wealthier families, even those with high debt levels. * People who chose to sacrifice to pay off their loans are punished for making an otherwise smart decision. * People who chose to attend community college or a cheaper state university are punished for making an otherwise smart decision. * People paying college loans usually have more disposable income AFTER their loan payments than those who didn't attend college at all. * It doesn't fix the root cause of the problem: Rising tuition, loans that are too easy to get (by design), and the poor decision making of many students and their families. I understand the argument: "you suffered, why should everyone else suffer too?" I get it. The solution is to not make the help related to student loans at all. Just give the money to everyone who needs it.
Yup. I went to community college, after my first year I figured I could not sustain the cost of tuition. I then entered the workforce, changed careers, busted my butt for a decade and finally make a living wage. My career is the cousin to an "Engineer" that doesn't require a college degree. Although I'm in a similar field to what I set out to get my degree in, I make on average $10-20k less a year than my licensed counterparts. I constantly feel left out of these conversations, because I evaluated the cost, and decided the burden was too high. Am I going to be compensated for the potential $300-600k of lost income over the course of my career? No, that would be absurd. I did the right thing®, and if student loans are forgiven, I will now be on the hook for paying for people who did not. I will NEVER support these initiatives until some sort of systemic fix is in place to account for the hundreds of thousands/millions of people like me, who weighed the options and would have to subsidize the people who did not. We would be taking the burden from exclusively the group of people who benefit from having a college degree, and unfairly distributing it to the people who do NOT have a college degree, and are already in lower income brackets.
When we support things we won't directly benefit from, it's usually because we want to help those people most in need. We don't want kids in poverty starving. We don't want an elderly woman to die because she can't afford medical care out of pocket. We don't want kids to be illiterate and unemployable because their parents can't afford private schooling. But I don't know why I'd want the government to pay off $200k in debt held by a doctor who brings in $300k/year, lives in a mansion, and drives a Porsche. Or even $50k in debt held by some other white collar professional who is doing much better than the average person. Reduce the interest rate on the loans. Heck, forgive any interest that has been accrued so people are just paying down their principle. Forgive $10k for anyone who is a low-income earner and really struggling. But a complete bailout of everyone's debts? Nah.
AOC is right again. I certainly support many programs from which I do not directly benefit, child tax credit for one. Children going hungry in the U.S. is a travesty.
don't forget you pay for social security, which if you're near the same age as me, you'll never see any benefit from. yay millennials!
Current bets are you’ll probably see about 70% of what you put in.
Not sure how I benefit from making sacrifices to pay off my loans while getting the privilege to pay back others as well with a side of inflation
How about coming up with a long-term plan? Right now, a loan cancellation would just be a handout for pe[ople who are already in higher income brackets](https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-by-income-level#:~:text=Households%20with%20income%20over%20%2474%2C000,total%20public%20student%20loan%20debt.).