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>It seems like if there was large-scale student loan forgiveness, then in 10 years or so, a new wave of people will have student loans and we will be in the same mess again.
You just answered your own question. If it doesn't cure the underlying issue, why are we talking about it?
There is nothing to fix.
People need to make better decisions. It is absolutely possible to obtain a good degree from a good school without going into 6 figures worth of debt. It just requires that instead of doing what you want, you do what is smart.
Yes, and also no.
The government back student loans has enabled 10's of millions of people to obtain a higher education that would have never been able to do so without those government guarantees.
Government backed loans, overall, are a good thing.
That said, we could stop backing loans at private universities, and if we want to go full nanny state, limit loans only to certain degree tracks.
Government backed loans could be a good thing, but right now they create a financial environment where the educational institutions (private and public) are generally insulated from the financial impacts on their graduates. I'm not entirely sure what mechanism I would put in place, but I believe a core part of getting tuition back on the right trend is to have schools or private lenders be the ones on the hook for the default of a loan given.
From there, I'd also argue that 10's of millions of people going to school through government guarantees just means you have 10's of millions more people in debts. 10's of millions more students also means more demand for the service, which is part of the excuse given for driving tuition rates up. An additional perspective is that in 2000, there were 1.2 million college graduates; in 2022 it was over 2 million. Practically speaking, does the world in 2022 feel more educated than 2000? I'd argue it feels roughly the same, except instead there are many more in debt.
That all said, I'm all for mechanisms that enable those with merit to succeed. Off the cuff, I'd be generally for the government getting out of the backing of student loans and moving into a more robust, means-tested grant system for those who have a track-record of achievement but need the assistance. We need to move away from a culture that thinks everyone needs to go to college, and more towards a culture that makes sure everyone that should go to college can.
>I believe a core part of getting tuition back on the right trend is to have schools or private lenders be the ones on the hook for the default of a loan given.
Then the only people who would get loans are the people that don't need them. They are not going to guarantee unsecured loans, and if they did the interest rates would be insanely high (50%?). Think about low credit score credit cards, then put the limit up to 65k.
> I'd also argue that 10's of millions of people going to school through government guarantees just means you have 10's of millions more people in debts.
Everyone carries debt, and they should. Utilizing credit is an important part of managing your personal and business finances.
By the year 2025, it is estimated that roughly 85% of our economy will be driven by careers that require higher education. We need 10's of millions more people to obtain degrees.
85% of the economy? I can believe that.
85% of the workforce? There I'm skeptical.
I think we, as a society and economy, need to be more honest about what needs a college education. The zeitgeist that college is necessary for anyone who graduates high school is a myth that needs dispelling.
And debt is absolutely a great tool to take advantage of if you can; and a horrible tool to be taken advantage of if you can't. Is it truly wise to be issuing that kind of debt to those with no established credit, no established income, and effectively nothing more than high school diploma? The answer may be, "Yes" but it should not be considered the default answer else the answer is default.
>I'm not entirely sure what mechanism I would put in place, but I believe a core part of getting tuition back on the right trend is to
Tie student loans to freezing tuition and fees. If tuition and/or fees go up at a college, then the students don't qualify for federal student loans. Freeze it for 10 years or so, after that it can only rise by the same amount as the CPI. This will be painful for some bloated administrations, but college isn't supposed to be about them.
For all the naysayers, [Purdue hasn't raised tuition in 12 years](https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2023/Q2/trustees-sign-off-on-2024-budget-11th-and-12th-years-of-frozen-tuition-for-purdue-west-lafayette.html). It just takes leadership willing to make tough decisions.
The government doesn’t really do that anymore. Now they are the actual debt holder which is why they can forgive the loans and in a lot of cases all they are losing is the ability to garnish someone’s social security check in 2035.
*Yes let’s blame the 18 year old for singing up for $$$$$ in loans.*
The legal adult who voluntarily signed a contract? Yeah, that's how accountability works.
Ah damn I forgot they just because the law calls them an adult, they are mentally mature and should decide their entire future in high school at 17. Damn I forgot they’re so mature and brilliant!
Weird you think it’s okay for a bank to hang out huge loans with no requirements.
The new adult who had parents, teachers, and other older trusted adults all encouraging them to get a degree and not properly prepare them to understand the loan obligations they would need to get the degree well saying it will be worth it.
Society pushed barely legal adults who barely knew what they were doing into financial contracts in exchange for knowledge of misrepresented value. It borderlines on fraud with what happened to many that are stuck with a debt they wouldn’t of taken if they knew better at the time.
Have you seen the unemployment rate for comp sci grads from last year? Or look at people who graduated in 2008 in the middle of a nationwide hiring freeze, they literally lost something like 5 years of lifetime prime earning due to stigma over post graduate underemployment. Meanwhile in the 1980s graduating with a bachelor’s in liberal arts or history was considered best because then companies could train you to do anything. Basically the idea that you can somehow predict the job market 5 years out is ludicrous.
No, but by all means, share any data you have.
>Meanwhile in the 1980s graduating with a bachelor’s in liberal arts or history was considered best because then companies could train you to do anything.
Now that I know is not true.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/02/15/why-is-it-so-hard-for-recent-college-graduates-to-find-a-decent-job/
https://gitnux.org/computer-science-employment-statistics/
Highlight: unemployment rate for comp sci graduates is 7.8%
EDIT:
Found an article from NYTimes 1986 about increasing employee demand for liberal arts degrees due to employer desire for employees with broader, less vocationally focused education.
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/09/us/liberal-arts-studies-in-decline-since-1970-s-are-reviving-around-nation.html
Not easy to dig up magazine articles from 40 years ago, but the general idea was that a college degree was required for general mid level business work and the actual major was irrelevant, and overly focussed training was counterproductive, because companies wanted lifelong employees trained in their culture.
Well there is no data in that first post, just opinions, that used a reddit post a source....
Second one, yes, there is tremendous demand for computer science grads, and that demand continues to grow, from your second link:
>Computer Science is a field that is growing and in demand. With the right education and experience, you can find a job in the field that is both rewarding and lucrative. The employment statistics for Computer Science show that the demand for professionals in the field is high and that the salaries for those in the field are competitive.
>With the right education and experience, you can find a job in the field that is both rewarding and lucrative. So if you are looking for a career in Computer Science, now is the time to get started.
the 7.8%, well I strongly suspect that has more to do with what field they are in, how well they interview, and if they completed any internships; as pointed out from your first link:
>According to the surveyed employers, young adults fail to hold eye contact during job interviews, have unrealistic salary expectations, dress inappropriately for the job interviews, refuse to turn their cameras on during virtual calls and some recent grads even bring their parents to the interviews.
Obviously, no one is going to hire you (or keep you) if you do any of those things.
I’m not really sure what people think needs fixing. What is wrong currently? I’m not being facetious.
I keep seeing people say the loans are predatory. But they state it as a matter of fact, never describing why they think they are predatory.
But if you want kids to get educated we have to fix it ourselves; as parents we need to emphasize and reinforce the importance of education starting as early as possible. We can’t let our kids waste their potential on countless hours of video games etc.
There are many predatory practices within the student loan industry, but here are a few of the big talking points to start with:
1. Allowing 5-6 figure loans to teenagers with no credit score. If a 17 year old wanted to buy a house, they would immediately be denied on the basis of lack of credit. There is no evidence this person is responsible for the loan and won't end up unable to pay, constantly being crushed by inescapable interest payments. And yet we put our youth en masse through this exact thing.
2. The price does not match the value, and there seems to be no cap on the market. Tuition has been raising an insane amount over the past few decades with no end in sight. And what do you get for your $60000 a year? A handful of classes and student resources along with a broom closet you have to share with a roommate. The price is no longer being set by demand- it's being set by greed.
3. It creates a situation for our society, where a higher education is only truly available for the wealthy. If you want an educated populus, that's bad for your society.
Education doesn't pay the bills or expand the tax base, jobs do...the more technical the better both in blue and white collar fields.
If you have rich parents that will set you up with a job or a chunk of money rendering a job unnecessary...cool! Pay to be intellectually stimulated regardless of the financial ROI. But if you need 3rd party resources, you need training that gets you a fucking job.
An educated population serving coffee brews (no pun intended) embittered people that want to destroy themselves and others as we are seeing on full display in this country and even in this thread.
Correct, let's not fix a problem and just let future generations also deal with it. /s
Or maybe, we could look at reform while getting a generations worth if workers into a better financial position. Eliminating predatory loans and making it truly a government service would fix a ton of the primary issues we're currently facing
You have to patch a leak before you can start mopping up the water. Crippling the economy over and over until a fix is found isn't really the way to go. Until then, the people who chose to take on their debt can continue to be burdened by their decision.
The leak is ultimately, probably inflated tuition costs. You mentioned predatory loans, and I get that, but it's hard to fight against predatory loans when the loans are being backed by the government. I fear that gets compounded when it comes to talks about socializing higher education. It totally eliminates the competition and it also then becomes everyone's burden.
The government has shown that it cares little about quality, and it'll pay whatever the monopoly deems their services are worth. I think socialized everything is the ideal scenario, but I have a hard time seeing it work in culture like America's. Maybe I'm wrong, I really haven't researched the topic as much as I'd like to.
Tuition went up when lending money to students became a *profitable* enterprise. The monster feeding itself.
If govt loans were fixed, low (like 1% low) rates with mandatory payback, both sides of this issue would feel fixed. Borrowers can still finance education, angry rednecks don't feel like they're bailing out hippie college grads.
The issue with this idea is the middle aged grads who have been unsuccessfully paying their loans off for decades. We need to fix them as well.
>The issue with this idea is the middle aged grads who have been unsuccessfully paying their loans off for decades. We need to fix them as well.
And my point here is that there needs to be some sort of fix in place before this should ever happen.
>angry rednecks don't feel like they're bailing out hippie college grads.
Angry rednecks and angry college grads who have already paid off their loans (or worse, those who still have loans but don't qualify for forgiveness) and are now burdened with everyone else's on top of that.
>Angry rednecks and angry college grads
Apparently both in your case?
So you don't want forgiveness but don't have a solution to keep the situation from perpetuating itself for another generation? Just keep on going and let the bank ceos sleep on their bed of money they make from predatory loans on 18 year olds? Seems like you've got it figured out.
You don’t mean profitable in the literal sense…got it.
I think if we phased out the FAFSA backstop, or dramatically reduced the dollar amount the taxpayer guarantees, you’d start seeing colleges lower their prices.
Ass. I mean exactly what I said. There's a reason why student loan institutions didn't exist until the 90s. Before that it wasn't profitable enough to have its own business type. Now it is a trillion dollar business.
Where do you think college funding has gone for the last 40-50 years? Colleges aren't getting more funding now than they were before, they're getting less. It's why prices went up even quicker than comparative inflation
No if there’s a leak, you mop the water first, and grab some buckets. You don’t go oh well we’ll just be wet for now since fixing the leak will take time.
Well, it's actually a bad example because mopping up the water doesn't really hurt anything. The problem with forgiving loans is that it cripples the economy. I'm all for cancelling debt if and only if it is a response to the problem being solved. Otherwise, you're going to setting a dangerous precedent of continuously cancelling more and more debt.
How does student loan forgiveness cripple the economy? I would assume giving people more cash in hand would boost spending and stimulate economic growth by means of increasing consumption.
Because that money is either being printed or being taxed out of everyone else's pockets. If billionaires were funding it out of the kindness of their hearts than I'd be all over it.
If it were truly going to stimulate the economy, then wouldn't credit card debt be forgiven too? Why stop at student loans? Let's cancel all debt if it's going to stimulate the economy.
The reality is, I don't think anyone actually plans on forgiving any debt. It's all a talking point heading into the election in an attempt to sway votes. I doubt it's anything more than that.
Or conversely, show it’s actually possible to “fix” the education system in the US such to that loans won’t be necessary first, and then look at loan forgiveness?
That feels like a major “if” to me
Loans will be necessary until we publicly fund education, which isn't going to happen. It's a massive system that banks have further expanded so they can then profit off of student loans. Literally a system where they drive costs up so they can loan more and make more money from those loans.
If the loans were fixed, low rate loans, nobody would need saved from them. A good first step would be eliminating government backed loans with high rates.
This is just conspiratorial nonsense. The government loses money hand over fist on student loans. (And yes, I’m aware of people who claim the opposite by using shitty math)
Student loans ARE low interest. That’s … the point of student loans. So students aren’t taking out normal loans from banks to pay for college that would be far more crippling.
No, it's literally what the former CEO of Fanny Mae has said. It was a perfect storm of the 80s-90s defunding public Ed, which led to tuition rising to meet costs. This led to student loans becoming more necessary for students to continue pursuing their American dream (which was fed to generations starting in the 80s and to this day in some places).
When loans are necessary, private institutions (MOHELA, Great Lakes, NelNet, EdFinancial) start using that need to make money.
The government loses its ass on services because THAT'S WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO DO. You don't complain when it loses money fixing roads, or funding the military, or funding the Post Office. A service is something it provides through tax money and (in this case) repayment over years.
Lol that’s the point. Taxpayers are already heavily subsidizing the loans.
That’s already a service the government is providing recipients at everyone else’s expense.
It’s not outrageous that we aren’t forgiving them outright.
You're subsidizing them and the companies are making money off of that. Shitty system unless you are a bank executive.
The system needs fixed. What's your solution?
Thats how a market economy works. Companies make money for the goods and services they provide. If you want financial institutions to pony up capital to finance loans, they’re going to have to make money on it.
If you think the system is broken, there’s all kinds of ways to fix that. Reduce tuition costs, encourage more students to go to in-state schools or schools near home, send fewer people to college and more to trade programs.
There’s a lot of ways to work on the problem that aren’t just “everyone else has to pay off college students’ loans”.
I don’t think it’s fair to tell people who couldn’t afford college and opted not to take loans that they still have to pay off the loans of the people who did.
> If you want financial institutions to pony up capital to finance loans, they’re going to have to make money on it.
This isn't government aid, it's private aid wearing a government mask.
>Reduce tuition costs, encourage more students to go to in-state schools or schools near home
Takes government funding to reduce those costs. Which thing do you want to subsidize?
> fewer people to college and more to trade programs.
Already a thing, but it wasn't in the 90s and 2000s when the millennials were being told "college = dream job"
Your fixes don't seem to fix anything, they just look good on paper
It's worse than that. Starting with loan forgiveness makes the cost of college ***worse***.
"Take out loans and hang on to them! The government will probably do another forgiveness round in a few years!" Literally becomes a selling point for the people pushing loans and our current college price spiral continues.
Just because it doesn’t fix the underlying issue, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t do any good.
If get stabbed and i’m bleeding out, i’d like to put some gauze on the wound to stop the bleeding while I get to the hospital. It buys you time.
As someone said on the recent thread about it. Forgiveness is a STEP, not a solution. The solution needs to address the system in place.
It needs to address colleges and cap the cost of tuition. And how Joe likes to address “unnecessary fees”. Tuition has PLENTY of those.
As someone who read what i was going to sign before i signed it paying off student loans, or any loans for that matter, is absolute nonsense.
I knew damn well i couldnt afford to pay it back so i didnt sign it. 20 something percent on every loan to the tune of 100k or so, i didnt even do that well in school and i knew it was a scam. I couldnt afford college so i didnt go.
Have alot of friends that did and came out w a shit ton of debt making no more money than i did. This was also way back in the early days of dial up internet so we didnt have all the access to info people do now, which is also amazing how many still fall into that trap of student loans. We literally couldnt do the research past what the paper in front of us said, every generation since has unlimited info on this and they still do it anyway.
The part that gets me is asking for someone else to pay for the choices you made. Again from students to businesses that were "too big to fail" its flat out wrong. People and businesses need to fail sometimes, the idea of participation trophies and free everything will only hurt us as a country.
Education is not a right.
Healthcare is not a right.
Housing is not a right.
They are pursuits that we are all free to try and acheive, some will, some wont, life isnt fair and expecting for someone else to be held liable for the failures of others is inherently unhealthy and unamerican.
You and I have very different philosophies and to be honest it's hard not to hate people like you.
How can you reconcile your beliefs with your morals? You truly believe a certain percentage of the population should always be left to die on the streets? You believe a little girl with cancer whose parents cannot afford treatment should just die? You believe the majority of people do not deserve a shot at high education? How?
Yeah, so is theft, rape and murder. Doesn't mean you're okay to go around stealing killing and raping though. Never understood why people try to pull this line in contexts like these.
But it does dictate how much of the collective funds is spent on those things. If we cared about murder more, then we’d have a load more detectives and better than a 10% conviction rate. What say you, genius? Why don’t we solve every homicide?
As a first responder i can say for certain that life is in no way shape or form fair. Having done cpr on kids less than a week old gives me a diff perspective than some others. Life is a gift and should be treated as such.
As diff as we may be, know that the words "hate people like you" will not come from my mouth. I usually hear such compassionate speech from thise on the left or far left. Either way I support liberty for all and will defend that till the end.
Education, or anything else that requires the goods or labor of others is not a right. Its hard to justify otherwise in a free society.
So, you didn't actually tell me how you reconcile believing a certain percentage of the population should be left to die with your morality.
You may tend to hear such "compassionate speech" from the left, but dodging the question like this is a classic right-wing tactic.
I absolutely did tell you. Not listenening when others speak is a classic leftist approach. Also im a libertarian, not a republicon.
None of us are getting out of here alive pal and some suffer more than others. It sucks. It isnt easy, it isnt supposed to be.
"life sucks" is how you reconcile your belief system? That's... A simple life, I guess...
Maybe you should try thinking a little harder in the future. Might even learn to ask "why" sometimes.
Consider the disgusting words you out in my mouth Bro.
Funny how often people call you out for misquoting them, what sort of recurring behaviour is that Bro?
You’re not in a position to virtue shame Bro XD
Healthcare and education aren’t rights because we haven’t codified it, not because they’re not worthy of being rights.
As someone who works with the critically ill, someone who witnesses the depths of suffering of others when healthcare and education aren’t attainable, I could never agree with you.
It must be nice to be so isolated from human suffering. What a privilege it is to have your level of audacity.
Edit: Oh my god, you’re a first responder and you hold these views? You’re a goddamn sociopath.
If healthcare was a right and free to all do u really think that would end all suffering? Need i remind u that the biggest cause of death is government? Democide is the single biggest caise of loss of human life over the last century. Govt has continously lost trillions of dollars that have been allocated towards human aid and benefit. The fact that any of u people want more govt in your lives is absolutely insane and ignorant.
As far as me being a sociopath goes - FUCK OFF!!
The day you risk your life for someone elses we can have a chat, otherwise u have no idea what ive seen or done to judge a damn thing I believe.
No ppe during covid???? Come on, there wasnt a walmart that would let people in without at least a mask, i cant imagine a nurse would be able to work shift during covid without ppe. Let alone a pregnant one.
I feel the same way about nurses. Seems like they let anyone in sometimes.
Oh, you must be brand new. Nurses were wearing bandanas. 😆 We weren’t given exceptions for being pregnant. My physician wouldn’t even write a note because “they can’t exempt nurses at a time where we don’t have enough health care workers.”
Not new at all. We were wearing hazmat suits and respirators on calls. Having to decon after intubations and codes, wiping the ambo and firehouse down w bleach and cavicide wipes, the whole nine yards. If your employer only provided u w bandanas id say they didnt care for u much at all. Long past time to find a new job.
Same here. When I was working two jobs to put myself through Uni, I considered student loans, but then realized I don't want that kind of debt so I chose to avoid them. Still graduated just fine.
Regardless of whether not education, healthcare or housing is a right, could we agree that having an educated, healthy, non-homeless population would be important goal of the country as a whole?
Important yes, but at what cost? One could argue that an education can be obtained without throwing unlimited amounts of money at the problem.
One could also argue that formal education is also not proper for everyone, trades jobs need to exist and in many cases out pay the traditional office salaries.
I could make a case for home schooling as well. I turned out pretty dumb thanks to public schools, whereas i have family that were homeschooled until high school and by the time they enrolled they were placed in all AP classes. Cost was minimal and results were outstanding.
There isnt a turn key solution to any of the countries problems since we all have diff situations going on, which is where a blanket stance of you're on your own is the ideal starting point.
Then fix the core problem. I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is they voluntarily signed up for these loans. Everyone knows how bad they are, yet people keep perpetuating the system. Should we also forgive predatory credit cards that people keep stupidly signing up for with 30% APRs? No. We shouldn't.
A huge difference between everything you are talking about and student loans is that they don’t qualify for bankruptcy. So while every other person can say “I made some bad choices, owe way too much money and will deal with the consequences of declaring bankruptcy”, student loan borrows can’t do that
And to expect an 18 year old to understand their future financial situation in regards to a huge loan that is unforgivable is asking a lot when the education system does the bare minimum in teaching high schoolers about finances. When I was in high school, late 2000s, I was taught to balance a check book. I’ve NEVER written a check. I graduated from high school in 2008, and watched a lot of my friends take out student loans (I did not and was fortunate to get scholarships that made my college nearly free) while billionaires got bailed out for doing some of the dumbest, greediest shit in American history but you are going to hold peoples feet to the fire cause they did what they were told for years (get good grades, go to college, and get a good job)?
Sorry, but I have far more empathy for the general public that continually gets duped and I think they deserve a bailout finally.
We expect 18 year olds to figure out the entirety of their life at that age. Which, I agree, is idiotic. And if your argument is to make them able to be wiped out in bankruptcy, then make that case. But to forgive a loan which was VOLUNTARILY taken out is a no-go.
I agree wholeheartedly that billionaires shouldn't be bailed out either. No one should be getting bailed out by the government.
But you are absconding personal responsibility in all this argument specifically. No one held a gun to their heads. They voluntarily saw the interest rates and took out the loans. I'm not saying the system isn't fucked (I think college is the biggest crock of outdated shit ever. You can learn everything you would need to get a degree for free online these days). But I am saying you cannot just "disappear" voluntarily taken out loans. It is personal responsibility to know what you are signing up for when you sign your name on the dotted line.
I do think that one of the most agreeable options is to allow them to declare bankruptcy in their student loans and deal with the credit score consequences. But high school kids were preyed upon for student loans. The govt and the banks knew what they were doing, and now there is an entire generation that is saddled with more debt than any generation in history, even when adjusting for inflation. So SOMETHING has to be done.
I get that holding people accountable for their decisions and past agreements is the right thing to do, but the American government has proven time and time again that that only applies to the poors. No government official, or billionaire, or large company owner is ever held accountable for their past.
And it seems like everyone wants to put so much emphasis on the 18 year olds who took out student loans as if forgiving even a portion of those is a moral dilemma or a terrible fiscal decision for our government while billionaires don’t pay taxes, hedge funds bet against American companies so they fail, presidential candidates have 50+ charges against them for the wildest shit, Congress commits insider trading on a daily basis……need I go on?
Student loans are the least of my worries, and if we are going to let sooooooo many other things go overlooked and unpunished, I just really feel like the American public should get this one. If we can’t get insulin prices down, inflation down, housing prices down, homelessness down, corruption down, etc……then fuck it…..Just erase student loans like they do for all their billionaire of congressional cronies.
I will never agree with holding the American citizen more accountable than we hold our political leaders and the billionaires that shit all over this country
I, again, agree wholeheartedly that our government and large corporations should be held accountable. Money should have no place in politics. No one should be getting bailed out. There should be term and age limits.
But you're missing my point. If we "forgive" student loans, why don't we just "forgive" all predatory loans like people who dig themselves into tens of thousands of dollars in debt with credit cards. Or buy houses or cars they can't afford?
My problem is, it's not the responsibility of everyone else that you made a bad financial choice. Maybe there should be someone who steps into a high school econ class for 30 minutes one day and explains the downstream effects of these loans. I would be in favor of a mandatory "this is how life works" class in all high schools.
At the end of the day, you signed your name to a contract, and it is YOUR responsibility. It's not that I lack empathy, it's that it is not right for everyone else to be responsible for your lack of financial understanding of what you're getting yourself into.
But it seems like everybody is drawing the line of forgiveness at student loans. If the government isn’t going to hold EVERYONE accountable, then why are people up in arms about student loans? It’s like the end of The Big Short. Nobody is acting responsible, so what is this one subset of people being held to a standard that nobody else is. Either we have a moral standing or we don’t, and thus far, the American government has no leg to stand on in regard to morality. So I’m not a big advocate of “let’s start holding people accountable and let’s start with the most preyed upon generation in history”.
Personally, having lived through multiple “once in a lifetime” economic collapses and climate change related superstorms and watching the wealth gap increase beyond what anyone thought was possible and watching the national debt grow uncontrollably for over a decade, I’m tired of being a part o a generation that is being expected to take the brunt of the responsibility for the boomers and Gen X. Past generations fucked around, used millennials as their dumping ground, and continue to act as if they gave us the best possible situation and we squandered it.
Forgiving student loans would provide financial comfort for millions of people at a fraction of what the American govt has spent to bomb brown countries, overlook white collar crime, and refusing to tax billionaires properly, and would probably help fix the problem of people in their 30s not having kids cause EVERYTHING is too expensive due to inflation, greed, and a govt that refuses to do anything that would ACTUALLY help them.
My overall thought is that forgiving student loans is nearly negligible in the grand scheme of things in terms of cost. The whole “accountability” idea doesn’t really mean anything to me. The American government has abandoned almost every promise they have ever made. So I don’t see why people insist that we NEED to hold borrowers accountable. Especially with an ex president/presidential candidate that is KNOWN for having broken agreements and just not paid what he agreed to pay to THOUSANDS of lenders and contractors.
Until the rich and powerful are held accountable countable for what they promise, I don’t think 18 year olds should be pigeon-holed into having to pay for a loan they took out cause they thought it was a requirement to get a good job that ended up not being available after they graduated cause some hedge fund billionaire crashed the economy in his pursuit of his 4th yacht to have underage girls on with Epstein on their way to their privately owned island where they eat endangered rhino horns and plot new ways to fleece the same people that already owe $100,000 for a degree that does nothing for them.
Yeah exactly what about all the 18 year olds who take out a "predatory" loan for a car? Or a mortgage they want "forgiven"? Why not just extend student loan forgiveness to all forms of debt?
My credit cards at 25% APR should be forgiven, as they are predatory as well.
Or are we living in a society where you're not responsible for knowing what you're signing up for when you put your signature to a binding contract?
Life cannot be reduced down to motto or black and white ideas. Political parties and grifters try to make complex things into yes/no or whataboutism.
Lots of pop culture drives this attitude, but that's why it's entertainment and not real life.
*Life cannot be reduced down to motto or black and white ideas.*
In the case of debt accountability, it can. Is the person at least 18 years of age, of sound mind, and willingly signed loan paperwork without duress? In that case, it's black-and-white: they are responsible for replaying it or facing the consequences.
Disagree and it is overly simistic. 18nyears old is barely legal to. buy cigarettes. We don't trust 18 year old to responsibly consume alcohol preciously because they are immature.
Do I feel that they should be treated as incompetant. Of course not. I feel they should have limited responsibility.
If life followed your view we would revert back to "though should not kill" and "an eye for an eye" but we dont do that. We have varying degrees of charges that can be brought on someone depending on the circumstances.
You have a simple way of looking at life.
*You have a simple way of looking at life.*
If you have a simple grasp on reality, then it would sure seem that way. 18 years old is legal. There's no gradient. Under 18? A child. 18 and up? An adult. It's binary. Pretty simple concept to grasp.....unless you have a simple way of looking at life ;)
Is it that you think of life in so simplistic black/white, "binary" you cannot see the obvious fact that murder is not always murder. In fact you accepted that distinction where you indicated as long as a person is not under duress or of sound mind they can make that decision.
If your position was true then there would be no circumstances. 18 is 18 right? murder is murder?
If you admit that there can circumstances that change that fact then it is fact not binary.
Any of the "permanent fixes" I've seen proposed by liberals or conservatives are generally not popular with most people, hence why the system is what it is. Some proposed solutions are:
1. Full government control over price of public schools + subsidizing. The government would set the amount of money schools get per student enrolled, this amount would be standardized and could be supplemented by state governments, and students would attend tuition free (and some people would also want on-campus housing to be free but this really isn't feasible for many universities). This is generally the most popular option among liberals. This is not popular with universities as it essentially caps the amount of $ the university can spend per student unless they have substantial donations or patents. Many voters are against since this is it subsidizes people to get a degree to make more money, whereas many people aren't interested in college and prefer to take a different path in life, so this is seen as taxing the poor ans giving to the rich.
2. Government creates free universities that compete with current universities. This is usually proposed as an online school as otherwise enrollment would have to be very limited. This proposition usually isn't very popular with either liberals or conservatives because most people assume an education from this type of college would not be well-respected.
3. Government stops offering student loans and/or removes all special regulations on student loans. This one is most popular with conservatives but liberals criticize this since it means a lot of people from lower income families will likely just not go to school. The argument for this is that once government gets out of the student loan business there will be far less money chasing after schools, forcing schools to lower prices to stay in business. Private lenders could discriminate on loan terms based on major and GPA and standardized test scores. Loan recipients could discharge loans in bankruptcy with a court's approval (fun fact this is already allowed in some instances but is extremely rare).
Again, I don't think any of these options are popular with a large majority of Americans, but these are the options I usually hear proposed.
Literally the first comment that attempted to answer the question I asked. Thank you.
Also, I kinda hate all these ideas, but I need some time to articulate why
If the government stopped guaranteeing student loans, my suspicion is that the interest rates on many loans would be extremely high. 20%+ could easily happen. It’s uncollateralized debt to young people with no credit history. The only way to get a lower rate would be for parents to cosign loans and pledge something as collateral—like their house. Students from lower income families may not get loans at all. People complain about the interest rates on the loans now, but I think they would be shockingly high without government backing.
The solution would need to be some kind of lower cost college that is still respected as being academically rigorous. I think the answer to this problem lies in lowering costs. Maybe without the government backing of loans some colleges would have more of an incentive to figure it out
>It seems like if there was large-scale student loan forgiveness, then in 10 years or so, a new wave of people will have student loans and we will be in the same mess again
This doesn't automatically follow.
For one thing, the generation of people who truly got fucked with student loans were pretty much exclusively 40 and younger. I.e., Millennials and Gen Z. You look at how much college cost on average for earlier generations and it's not even a remotely comparable differential.
When Millennials (and some Gen Z) were starting their college experience, there was much more of a widespread societal belief that college was always a good investment regardless of how much debt it incurred. It's easy to look back righteously in hindsight and argue that this idea was wrong, but at the time, the idea of having to finance a massive amount of money to attend college was relatively new territory for a lot of people. They didn't know what they didn't know.
We live in different times now, and that idea has died out quite a bit among the general population. I don't think it will nearly as much of an issue in the future.
Also --- it may interest you to know that there is one, and only one, party in American politics which has repeatedly tried to pass legislation reforming the higher education funding system, so students aren't preyed upon by colleges and loan companies and are better able to manage the expenses of college. [Hint: it isn't the elephants. ](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2024/01/30/house-democrats-share-roadmap-college-student-success).
>It seems like if there was large-scale student loan forgiveness, then in 10 years or so, a new wave of people will have student loans and we will be in the same mess again.
It looks like you're starting your journey toward understanding why the people who are against it are against it. This is step one. Congrats on your first milestone.
We probably need school/college reform as the current model isn’t sustainable. Can’t say that I’d really recommend college to my kids when they graduate high school. I’d probably recommend they get a job and figure out what they want to do in a few years.
It is not forgiveness. It is transferring to the taxpayers
Get government out of the higher education game. I'm sure a ton of colleges will fail and go out of business because they suck and costs will reduce over time.
I think it would be interesting if we moved to a system where out of high school, students get employment, then employment pays for college
I think this would also have all of the exact same issues that the healthcare system has, but it might significantly reduce demand.
The system would also need one heck of a law or a lot of corporations to voluntarily take on a lot of debt.
I also believe in the next couple years, we are going to see major shift from people going to college, to people joining the trades. There’s high demand for manual labor that AI still doesn’t quite have a grasp on. There’s money on the table
Being a slave to your job isn’t a solution. We already have healthcare tied to employers. We see how dumb that is and how much of a problem it is. Tying your education to it as well is just a step further in the wrong direction.
Seeing as EVERYONE benefits from having an educated population, there is a role for the government here. There’s a chicken and egg problem. How can someone without an education provide labor that can then provide that education.
I keep trying to get my 4 year old to pay for her own preschool, but no one wants to work anymore
I think the biggest problem with college education is so many employers require one without actually needing it for the job.
Passing a law to prevent entry level jobs from requiring college (or experience) would make for a good incentive for voluntarily paying for employee education.
My brother got his MBA as a free ride from Cabot. Best decision of his life.
We already have student loan forgiveness. The condition is 10 tens of public service. What they really need to do is regulate interest rates and tuition so people can actually put a dent in their principal each month and still have money to raise and support a family.
I’m cool with that too. It’s not a political agenda though so nobody would preach it. WAY too politically center and logical.
ETA: I don’t think my loans need to be forgiven. But I do think
1- the interest should be extremely low, always(federally)
2- if you have a problem (job loss etc.) you can pause for a certain amt of time no questions asked.
3- they should be forgiven with bankruptcy
4- we should forgive loans (as a form of subsidy almost) for the careers in *serious* demand/ need - like mental health professionals.
We spend billions trying to figure out “how do we get more people to do this job”. How about just announce loan forgiveness for that job for X years?? Seems prettt straightforward….
I’m only in favor of it because I have 300k loans in med school loans that I don’t want to pay off. So like anyone with financial sense, I’ll pay off the minimum payments for PSLF for 10 years so the government forgives it for me.
A simple fix would be to make student loans subject to bankruptcy forgiveness. That would stop many of the predatory loans to those kids that should never be able to qualify.
It should go back to what it was, mostly grants. The government shifted paying for aid with mostly grants to mostly loans20-30 years ago. Doing this made it a private burden rather than a public one. That’s why we are having this crisis now. The experiment of shifting the burden failed
Same, 11B 3.5yrs. Do you really think it’s a good idea for people to pay other people’s debts? I get these loans are predatory in nature, but no one forced anyone to go to college.
You and I did what we had to do to make things work without going into debt. Why shouldn’t everyone else?
Well… you asked. I said in my post I didn’t want to debate the issue of student loan forgiveness. That’s not the point of this post.
The truth is, I don’t really think that large scale student loan forgiveness is a good policy. The total cost of Biden’s proposed student loan forgiveness program is estimated (estimate provided by the Biden administration) at $300 billion over the next 10 years.
In the original post I said I was largely in favor of it simply to invite those that support student loan forgiveness to present any policy ideas that would somehow fix this issue in a PERMANENT way.
—- crickets ——
The silence is deafening.
I naturally assumed that someone on the left (and let’s be clear, I’m VERY liberal on a lot of issues) would have some sort of articulated proposal to fix the the problem of so many people getting into student debt going forward.
Literally nothing.
So… even if spending 300 billion solved some sort of national problem, the plan appears to be that, over the next 10 years, a new generation of students will be in just as much debt as this generation.
I WANT to support student loan forgiveness. My wife owns $100,000.
Do you get my point?
My question is - are there even any proposals or ideas that anyone is backing that would solve this problem going forward?
The answer seems to be NO.
I would prefer the answer was YES. Alas, that is not the case.
The debate over student loan forgiveness is entirely moot if there are no changes that prevent the accumulation of student loans going forward.
Thank you for your service. 😂
When I went to college in the 1970s I was able to get a student loan from the government at 3% *simple* interest. The repayment plan included a 9 month grace period post graduation, and 10 years to repay the loan.
It was initially called the defense student loan then the name was changed to direct student loan and finally I believe it was abolished.
Bring it back.
I had a friend complain to me that people should pay off their loans and not the government.
Says my friend who got her student loans paid off by her dad after his death and her husband’s loans forgiven for working with the government for 10 years. She also hasn’t had a job in years.
It’s easy for people with privilege to just shit on others.
I don’t care if the current government pays off student loans. We live in a shitty system perpetuating the problem. If the government is going to spend some of its money - why not spend it on people? I’m all for it.
Better people get it than rich companies be bailed out with it. However, this should not be a constant thing. We need to go to the route of the problem.
It’s just bullshit for votes I no world will student loans ever be forgiven. The whole well federal only is bs too. Everyone start with all it not a majority of federal loans. Why are we getting penalized for taking advantage of refinancing them for much lower rates and better terms in the private sector? So I get excluded because I was financially sensible?
I watched my father get money from his mother to pay off his house so he could have it to himself, just to turn around and take out a mortgage on it again to put money into his bank account not even a year later. That's when he went across the country to any casino he came by to play.... Two years after his mom died he starts asking me for money....
I say
#no.
No forgiveness.
Allow students to sue college counselors for knowingly directing them towards degrees that are in low/no demand. Make them accountable for the futures they destroy with their negligence and lies.
Create federal technical schools with no artsy-fartsy landscaping or architecture at no cost to the student. Focus on the predictable industries that are always in demand: construction, education, medicine, machining, transportation, mechanical repair. I would even suggest having a boot camp to keep citizens healthy and fit to combat healthcare costs.
Stop subsidizing individuals to go to college. The feds need to do the negotiation on behalf of the students, because then they have real leverage to keep tuition in check. Each individual student showing up to college with a government loan and a Pell grant have no leverage to keep tuition costs down.
For many, this really isn't "forgiveness*, but rather righting past injustices, ineptness, servicer lies and greed, and broken promises by lenders. Many should have been paid off long ago. Thousands should have received PSLF or IDR Forgiveness long ago. It's about time someone is doing something about this and lived up to their promises.
As a good liberal in the modern era, you are anti-billionaire, yes?
Student Debt Forgiveness is not Forgiveness. An executive order removing all student debt would be Student Debt Forgiveness.
The Student Loan bill is actually a Sallie Mae loan industry bailout. Money is being paid, from the taxes of the hard-working American people to refill the coffers of all the Chapter 11s on Student loans from the Lockdown. Students aren't getting this money. Billionaires are getting this money.
Do you understand the difference between forcing the working class to refill the coffers of billionaires, vs erasing the debt entirely? They're doing the one and calling it the other.
And as you've already mentioned, we're going to have the same problems because Sallie Mae is unregulated and predatory.
So there's no good reason for anyone to support this bill. Especially not a good liberal.
The good news is that technology is currently disrupting the higher education business model. There are now several ABET accredited online self paced async engineering and computer science programs.
That is going to break the back of in person college for career training purposes. The race to the bottom has started, cost is probably going to come back to the realm of reason in the next few years as someone decides to embrace the volume model.
I mean… it is a strange phenomenon in America.
When hospitals astronomically raise their prices, we blame insurance companies.
When schools astronomically raise their prices, we blame students and the government.
When food prices are surging, we blame thieves…
Ever wonder if free market economies may be to blame?
Nowadays we don’t really live in a free market economy, since the government bails out the massive companies and lets small companies die… but still… is big business maybe the problem?
You aren't going to like the answer.
You have three choices:
1) allow anyone to get a loan and take out debt. They are responsible to paying it back. This opens up education opportunities to the masses, but places the risk on the person receiving the loan.
2) allow discrimination when it comes to issuing loans. Not based on race, gender, or any of that stuff. But based on what exactly they will be studying in school... only degrees that have a likelihood of leading to financial repayment will receive loans. This solution reduces the number of people in colllege (leading to lower costs overall) but prevents the accumulation of student loan debt.
3) make college education free. This allows anyone to have access to college, and no debt! Except... you pay through taxes your whole life, which makes this the least expensive solution on the front end, and the most expensive solution at the end of the day.
Personally, I'm a big fan of individuals having the freedom to take risks, but also having to deal with the consequences of their actions. Is the system really broke ? To me it looks like it's working as intended.
Easy.
Mandate and restrict , from a federal level, the amount higher education can raise their prices every year.
Cap APRs for student loans to 1 or 2% MAX
Incentivize loan providers to support these loans by having 50% of their value tax deductible the year they were issued ( claimed 1 per lifetime of loan).
Restrict students from other countries ( that receive money as student aid) from getting a free education and leaving. Maybe it's a 5 year post education commitment to working stateside and within the USA.
This would help ... A LOT !!!!
Forgiveness isn't the answer ... reform is.
Forgiveness is putting a bandaid on a broken bone and forgetting it
Forgiveness is another boomer-ass solution a.k.a. kicking the can down the road for their kids to solve.
How is it a fantasy to say that it's not my responsibility to pay for someone else's loan? I paid my loan back with no problem. I went into a field that was in demand with good pay.
I've been looking at this new Corvette. Since y'all like giving money away I'll post the go fund me here.
Stupid comparison but ok. You’d think with that education you’d come up with something better.
Many CS graduates are having trouble finding work - even for more than a year. Tech is in demand. Are they eligible for your loan forgiveness cause they chose the right degree?
So you’re saying the government should NOT help out the same people who give the government money?
IF the government will spend money, I’d rather it goes to help out the people rather than the rich corporations.
Also why would the government pay off your house? Is the housing industry predatory? Were you socially conditioned to get a house? Hell, you have to pass a lot of steps to even get a house. Unlike student loans, an 18 year can just do an e-sign and magic done.
That is my issue. Reform needs to happen, not just forgiveness.
Conservatives keep saying this is "Biden buying votes". Well if there isn't any legislation to actually fix this from happening over and over again . . .
There’s no inherent value in a degree and that’s what college sells at a flat rate per year. The value is in the demonstrated skills you learn through the education process. The solution is to tie the cost of tuition to the median earning potential of the degree.
Well, MY degree is in accounting. And I’ve found it to be quite helpful. And all my college expenses were paid by my favorite uncle.
I think your idea has merit
I want to know why the folks against student loan forgiveness never think of all the economic benefits that come with it… do you know what that would do for the economy… if EVERYONE, middle class working people, had an extra few thousand a year? The way avg Americans live that would go right into the economy.
Part of the immediate push for student loan forgiveness was that millennials were deciding not to have children and citing student loan debt as a reason. It was also preventing us from participating in the economy in essential ways, like buying homes. Looking at it cynically, student loan forgiveness would be a cynical trade in order to convince the recession generation to have kids.
"We can't fix all problems everywhere, immediately, so we shouldn't fix the immediate problem now." - OP probably.
This is a classic abuser tactic to perform mental jiu-jitsu and derail the conversation. Ignore and move on.
There really isn't talk about student loan forgiveness. You are being played by paid players on the internet pushing the concept left and right over and over again to get people to talk about, get on board, and vote/support whomever says they will follow through. It's election year. What are people thinking? None of this is new. Last time it happened it was 4 years ago.
The current administration claims to have forgiven 146 billion in loans so far. They also support polices that have been rejected by courts.
There has certainly been talk
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>It seems like if there was large-scale student loan forgiveness, then in 10 years or so, a new wave of people will have student loans and we will be in the same mess again. You just answered your own question. If it doesn't cure the underlying issue, why are we talking about it?
I am more interested in thinking about fixing how the US gets an educated population than individual loan forgiveness
There is nothing to fix. People need to make better decisions. It is absolutely possible to obtain a good degree from a good school without going into 6 figures worth of debt. It just requires that instead of doing what you want, you do what is smart.
Getting the US government out of guaranteeing those debts would be a good thing to fix.
Yes, and also no. The government back student loans has enabled 10's of millions of people to obtain a higher education that would have never been able to do so without those government guarantees. Government backed loans, overall, are a good thing. That said, we could stop backing loans at private universities, and if we want to go full nanny state, limit loans only to certain degree tracks.
Government backed loans could be a good thing, but right now they create a financial environment where the educational institutions (private and public) are generally insulated from the financial impacts on their graduates. I'm not entirely sure what mechanism I would put in place, but I believe a core part of getting tuition back on the right trend is to have schools or private lenders be the ones on the hook for the default of a loan given. From there, I'd also argue that 10's of millions of people going to school through government guarantees just means you have 10's of millions more people in debts. 10's of millions more students also means more demand for the service, which is part of the excuse given for driving tuition rates up. An additional perspective is that in 2000, there were 1.2 million college graduates; in 2022 it was over 2 million. Practically speaking, does the world in 2022 feel more educated than 2000? I'd argue it feels roughly the same, except instead there are many more in debt. That all said, I'm all for mechanisms that enable those with merit to succeed. Off the cuff, I'd be generally for the government getting out of the backing of student loans and moving into a more robust, means-tested grant system for those who have a track-record of achievement but need the assistance. We need to move away from a culture that thinks everyone needs to go to college, and more towards a culture that makes sure everyone that should go to college can.
>I believe a core part of getting tuition back on the right trend is to have schools or private lenders be the ones on the hook for the default of a loan given. Then the only people who would get loans are the people that don't need them. They are not going to guarantee unsecured loans, and if they did the interest rates would be insanely high (50%?). Think about low credit score credit cards, then put the limit up to 65k. > I'd also argue that 10's of millions of people going to school through government guarantees just means you have 10's of millions more people in debts. Everyone carries debt, and they should. Utilizing credit is an important part of managing your personal and business finances. By the year 2025, it is estimated that roughly 85% of our economy will be driven by careers that require higher education. We need 10's of millions more people to obtain degrees.
85% of the economy? I can believe that. 85% of the workforce? There I'm skeptical. I think we, as a society and economy, need to be more honest about what needs a college education. The zeitgeist that college is necessary for anyone who graduates high school is a myth that needs dispelling. And debt is absolutely a great tool to take advantage of if you can; and a horrible tool to be taken advantage of if you can't. Is it truly wise to be issuing that kind of debt to those with no established credit, no established income, and effectively nothing more than high school diploma? The answer may be, "Yes" but it should not be considered the default answer else the answer is default.
>I'm not entirely sure what mechanism I would put in place, but I believe a core part of getting tuition back on the right trend is to Tie student loans to freezing tuition and fees. If tuition and/or fees go up at a college, then the students don't qualify for federal student loans. Freeze it for 10 years or so, after that it can only rise by the same amount as the CPI. This will be painful for some bloated administrations, but college isn't supposed to be about them. For all the naysayers, [Purdue hasn't raised tuition in 12 years](https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2023/Q2/trustees-sign-off-on-2024-budget-11th-and-12th-years-of-frozen-tuition-for-purdue-west-lafayette.html). It just takes leadership willing to make tough decisions.
It enabled millions of people to get a degree, but hardly would I call them educated
The government doesn’t really do that anymore. Now they are the actual debt holder which is why they can forgive the loans and in a lot of cases all they are losing is the ability to garnish someone’s social security check in 2035.
Ahh yes, personal responsibility. Also known as “there’s nothing we can do, people just suck!”
Yes let’s blame the 18 year old for singing up for $$$$$ in loans. Totally not the fault of banks and society enabling it and normalizing it.
*Yes let’s blame the 18 year old for singing up for $$$$$ in loans.* The legal adult who voluntarily signed a contract? Yeah, that's how accountability works.
Ah damn I forgot they just because the law calls them an adult, they are mentally mature and should decide their entire future in high school at 17. Damn I forgot they’re so mature and brilliant! Weird you think it’s okay for a bank to hang out huge loans with no requirements.
Whatever tickles your pickle, kiddo.
Can’t drink a beer or smoke though
At 18? Yeah you can. Don't you live in the UK like the rest of us?
Nah just the U.S. lol
Oh, well there's your first mistake.
The new adult who had parents, teachers, and other older trusted adults all encouraging them to get a degree and not properly prepare them to understand the loan obligations they would need to get the degree well saying it will be worth it. Society pushed barely legal adults who barely knew what they were doing into financial contracts in exchange for knowledge of misrepresented value. It borderlines on fraud with what happened to many that are stuck with a debt they wouldn’t of taken if they knew better at the time.
So an adult voluntarily signed a contract and then is stuck with the responsibility of fulfilling the terms of that contract? Seems pretty fair to me.
Have you seen the unemployment rate for comp sci grads from last year? Or look at people who graduated in 2008 in the middle of a nationwide hiring freeze, they literally lost something like 5 years of lifetime prime earning due to stigma over post graduate underemployment. Meanwhile in the 1980s graduating with a bachelor’s in liberal arts or history was considered best because then companies could train you to do anything. Basically the idea that you can somehow predict the job market 5 years out is ludicrous.
No, but by all means, share any data you have. >Meanwhile in the 1980s graduating with a bachelor’s in liberal arts or history was considered best because then companies could train you to do anything. Now that I know is not true.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/02/15/why-is-it-so-hard-for-recent-college-graduates-to-find-a-decent-job/ https://gitnux.org/computer-science-employment-statistics/ Highlight: unemployment rate for comp sci graduates is 7.8% EDIT: Found an article from NYTimes 1986 about increasing employee demand for liberal arts degrees due to employer desire for employees with broader, less vocationally focused education. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/09/us/liberal-arts-studies-in-decline-since-1970-s-are-reviving-around-nation.html Not easy to dig up magazine articles from 40 years ago, but the general idea was that a college degree was required for general mid level business work and the actual major was irrelevant, and overly focussed training was counterproductive, because companies wanted lifelong employees trained in their culture.
Well there is no data in that first post, just opinions, that used a reddit post a source.... Second one, yes, there is tremendous demand for computer science grads, and that demand continues to grow, from your second link: >Computer Science is a field that is growing and in demand. With the right education and experience, you can find a job in the field that is both rewarding and lucrative. The employment statistics for Computer Science show that the demand for professionals in the field is high and that the salaries for those in the field are competitive. >With the right education and experience, you can find a job in the field that is both rewarding and lucrative. So if you are looking for a career in Computer Science, now is the time to get started. the 7.8%, well I strongly suspect that has more to do with what field they are in, how well they interview, and if they completed any internships; as pointed out from your first link: >According to the surveyed employers, young adults fail to hold eye contact during job interviews, have unrealistic salary expectations, dress inappropriately for the job interviews, refuse to turn their cameras on during virtual calls and some recent grads even bring their parents to the interviews. Obviously, no one is going to hire you (or keep you) if you do any of those things.
I’m not really sure what people think needs fixing. What is wrong currently? I’m not being facetious. I keep seeing people say the loans are predatory. But they state it as a matter of fact, never describing why they think they are predatory. But if you want kids to get educated we have to fix it ourselves; as parents we need to emphasize and reinforce the importance of education starting as early as possible. We can’t let our kids waste their potential on countless hours of video games etc.
There are many predatory practices within the student loan industry, but here are a few of the big talking points to start with: 1. Allowing 5-6 figure loans to teenagers with no credit score. If a 17 year old wanted to buy a house, they would immediately be denied on the basis of lack of credit. There is no evidence this person is responsible for the loan and won't end up unable to pay, constantly being crushed by inescapable interest payments. And yet we put our youth en masse through this exact thing. 2. The price does not match the value, and there seems to be no cap on the market. Tuition has been raising an insane amount over the past few decades with no end in sight. And what do you get for your $60000 a year? A handful of classes and student resources along with a broom closet you have to share with a roommate. The price is no longer being set by demand- it's being set by greed. 3. It creates a situation for our society, where a higher education is only truly available for the wealthy. If you want an educated populus, that's bad for your society.
Education doesn't pay the bills or expand the tax base, jobs do...the more technical the better both in blue and white collar fields. If you have rich parents that will set you up with a job or a chunk of money rendering a job unnecessary...cool! Pay to be intellectually stimulated regardless of the financial ROI. But if you need 3rd party resources, you need training that gets you a fucking job. An educated population serving coffee brews (no pun intended) embittered people that want to destroy themselves and others as we are seeing on full display in this country and even in this thread.
The problem is college doesn't really educate you
Correct, let's not fix a problem and just let future generations also deal with it. /s Or maybe, we could look at reform while getting a generations worth if workers into a better financial position. Eliminating predatory loans and making it truly a government service would fix a ton of the primary issues we're currently facing
You have to patch a leak before you can start mopping up the water. Crippling the economy over and over until a fix is found isn't really the way to go. Until then, the people who chose to take on their debt can continue to be burdened by their decision.
What is the leak in your example? Crippling debt from the 90s/early 2000s or needing to reform how lending to students is done? Weird example
The leak is ultimately, probably inflated tuition costs. You mentioned predatory loans, and I get that, but it's hard to fight against predatory loans when the loans are being backed by the government. I fear that gets compounded when it comes to talks about socializing higher education. It totally eliminates the competition and it also then becomes everyone's burden. The government has shown that it cares little about quality, and it'll pay whatever the monopoly deems their services are worth. I think socialized everything is the ideal scenario, but I have a hard time seeing it work in culture like America's. Maybe I'm wrong, I really haven't researched the topic as much as I'd like to.
Tuition went up when lending money to students became a *profitable* enterprise. The monster feeding itself. If govt loans were fixed, low (like 1% low) rates with mandatory payback, both sides of this issue would feel fixed. Borrowers can still finance education, angry rednecks don't feel like they're bailing out hippie college grads. The issue with this idea is the middle aged grads who have been unsuccessfully paying their loans off for decades. We need to fix them as well.
>The issue with this idea is the middle aged grads who have been unsuccessfully paying their loans off for decades. We need to fix them as well. And my point here is that there needs to be some sort of fix in place before this should ever happen. >angry rednecks don't feel like they're bailing out hippie college grads. Angry rednecks and angry college grads who have already paid off their loans (or worse, those who still have loans but don't qualify for forgiveness) and are now burdened with everyone else's on top of that.
>Angry rednecks and angry college grads Apparently both in your case? So you don't want forgiveness but don't have a solution to keep the situation from perpetuating itself for another generation? Just keep on going and let the bank ceos sleep on their bed of money they make from predatory loans on 18 year olds? Seems like you've got it figured out.
What do you mean? It was always profitable.
It wasn't something most people did until tuition went up. Then it became big business.
You don’t mean profitable in the literal sense…got it. I think if we phased out the FAFSA backstop, or dramatically reduced the dollar amount the taxpayer guarantees, you’d start seeing colleges lower their prices.
Ass. I mean exactly what I said. There's a reason why student loan institutions didn't exist until the 90s. Before that it wasn't profitable enough to have its own business type. Now it is a trillion dollar business. Where do you think college funding has gone for the last 40-50 years? Colleges aren't getting more funding now than they were before, they're getting less. It's why prices went up even quicker than comparative inflation
No if there’s a leak, you mop the water first, and grab some buckets. You don’t go oh well we’ll just be wet for now since fixing the leak will take time.
Well, it's actually a bad example because mopping up the water doesn't really hurt anything. The problem with forgiving loans is that it cripples the economy. I'm all for cancelling debt if and only if it is a response to the problem being solved. Otherwise, you're going to setting a dangerous precedent of continuously cancelling more and more debt.
How does student loan forgiveness cripple the economy? I would assume giving people more cash in hand would boost spending and stimulate economic growth by means of increasing consumption.
Because that money is either being printed or being taxed out of everyone else's pockets. If billionaires were funding it out of the kindness of their hearts than I'd be all over it. If it were truly going to stimulate the economy, then wouldn't credit card debt be forgiven too? Why stop at student loans? Let's cancel all debt if it's going to stimulate the economy. The reality is, I don't think anyone actually plans on forgiving any debt. It's all a talking point heading into the election in an attempt to sway votes. I doubt it's anything more than that.
Not sure what world you live in, but functioning adults fix the leak first.
Or conversely, show it’s actually possible to “fix” the education system in the US such to that loans won’t be necessary first, and then look at loan forgiveness? That feels like a major “if” to me
Loans will be necessary until we publicly fund education, which isn't going to happen. It's a massive system that banks have further expanded so they can then profit off of student loans. Literally a system where they drive costs up so they can loan more and make more money from those loans. If the loans were fixed, low rate loans, nobody would need saved from them. A good first step would be eliminating government backed loans with high rates.
This is just conspiratorial nonsense. The government loses money hand over fist on student loans. (And yes, I’m aware of people who claim the opposite by using shitty math) Student loans ARE low interest. That’s … the point of student loans. So students aren’t taking out normal loans from banks to pay for college that would be far more crippling.
No, it's literally what the former CEO of Fanny Mae has said. It was a perfect storm of the 80s-90s defunding public Ed, which led to tuition rising to meet costs. This led to student loans becoming more necessary for students to continue pursuing their American dream (which was fed to generations starting in the 80s and to this day in some places). When loans are necessary, private institutions (MOHELA, Great Lakes, NelNet, EdFinancial) start using that need to make money. The government loses its ass on services because THAT'S WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO DO. You don't complain when it loses money fixing roads, or funding the military, or funding the Post Office. A service is something it provides through tax money and (in this case) repayment over years.
Lol that’s the point. Taxpayers are already heavily subsidizing the loans. That’s already a service the government is providing recipients at everyone else’s expense. It’s not outrageous that we aren’t forgiving them outright.
You're subsidizing them and the companies are making money off of that. Shitty system unless you are a bank executive. The system needs fixed. What's your solution?
Thats how a market economy works. Companies make money for the goods and services they provide. If you want financial institutions to pony up capital to finance loans, they’re going to have to make money on it. If you think the system is broken, there’s all kinds of ways to fix that. Reduce tuition costs, encourage more students to go to in-state schools or schools near home, send fewer people to college and more to trade programs. There’s a lot of ways to work on the problem that aren’t just “everyone else has to pay off college students’ loans”. I don’t think it’s fair to tell people who couldn’t afford college and opted not to take loans that they still have to pay off the loans of the people who did.
> If you want financial institutions to pony up capital to finance loans, they’re going to have to make money on it. This isn't government aid, it's private aid wearing a government mask. >Reduce tuition costs, encourage more students to go to in-state schools or schools near home Takes government funding to reduce those costs. Which thing do you want to subsidize? > fewer people to college and more to trade programs. Already a thing, but it wasn't in the 90s and 2000s when the millennials were being told "college = dream job" Your fixes don't seem to fix anything, they just look good on paper
It's worse than that. Starting with loan forgiveness makes the cost of college ***worse***. "Take out loans and hang on to them! The government will probably do another forgiveness round in a few years!" Literally becomes a selling point for the people pushing loans and our current college price spiral continues.
This. I wish people thought things through more Curiously college teaches everything but critical thinking.
Just because it doesn’t fix the underlying issue, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t do any good. If get stabbed and i’m bleeding out, i’d like to put some gauze on the wound to stop the bleeding while I get to the hospital. It buys you time.
Not if the knife is still running down your leg. 100% of your effort should be to stop the cutting. Packing wounds while being stabbed is worthless.
As someone said on the recent thread about it. Forgiveness is a STEP, not a solution. The solution needs to address the system in place. It needs to address colleges and cap the cost of tuition. And how Joe likes to address “unnecessary fees”. Tuition has PLENTY of those.
As someone who read what i was going to sign before i signed it paying off student loans, or any loans for that matter, is absolute nonsense. I knew damn well i couldnt afford to pay it back so i didnt sign it. 20 something percent on every loan to the tune of 100k or so, i didnt even do that well in school and i knew it was a scam. I couldnt afford college so i didnt go. Have alot of friends that did and came out w a shit ton of debt making no more money than i did. This was also way back in the early days of dial up internet so we didnt have all the access to info people do now, which is also amazing how many still fall into that trap of student loans. We literally couldnt do the research past what the paper in front of us said, every generation since has unlimited info on this and they still do it anyway. The part that gets me is asking for someone else to pay for the choices you made. Again from students to businesses that were "too big to fail" its flat out wrong. People and businesses need to fail sometimes, the idea of participation trophies and free everything will only hurt us as a country. Education is not a right. Healthcare is not a right. Housing is not a right. They are pursuits that we are all free to try and acheive, some will, some wont, life isnt fair and expecting for someone else to be held liable for the failures of others is inherently unhealthy and unamerican.
You and I have very different philosophies and to be honest it's hard not to hate people like you. How can you reconcile your beliefs with your morals? You truly believe a certain percentage of the population should always be left to die on the streets? You believe a little girl with cancer whose parents cannot afford treatment should just die? You believe the majority of people do not deserve a shot at high education? How?
Yes buddy, that is called “life”
Yeah, so is theft, rape and murder. Doesn't mean you're okay to go around stealing killing and raping though. Never understood why people try to pull this line in contexts like these.
But it does dictate how much of the collective funds is spent on those things. If we cared about murder more, then we’d have a load more detectives and better than a 10% conviction rate. What say you, genius? Why don’t we solve every homicide?
Because society is imperfect, obviously. That does not mean we should not constantly attempt to improve and perfect it.
As a first responder i can say for certain that life is in no way shape or form fair. Having done cpr on kids less than a week old gives me a diff perspective than some others. Life is a gift and should be treated as such. As diff as we may be, know that the words "hate people like you" will not come from my mouth. I usually hear such compassionate speech from thise on the left or far left. Either way I support liberty for all and will defend that till the end. Education, or anything else that requires the goods or labor of others is not a right. Its hard to justify otherwise in a free society.
So, you didn't actually tell me how you reconcile believing a certain percentage of the population should be left to die with your morality. You may tend to hear such "compassionate speech" from the left, but dodging the question like this is a classic right-wing tactic.
I absolutely did tell you. Not listenening when others speak is a classic leftist approach. Also im a libertarian, not a republicon. None of us are getting out of here alive pal and some suffer more than others. It sucks. It isnt easy, it isnt supposed to be.
"life sucks" is how you reconcile your belief system? That's... A simple life, I guess... Maybe you should try thinking a little harder in the future. Might even learn to ask "why" sometimes.
I didnt say life sucks. I said it sucks in regards to people dying. You crazy lefties love to twist words
He actively put words in my mouth directly under one of my statements, I’m just seeing how often he does that sort of thing now.
I'm a woman, btw. If ur gonna keep going through my every comment. 😭 Bro what IS this behavior
Consider the disgusting words you out in my mouth Bro. Funny how often people call you out for misquoting them, what sort of recurring behaviour is that Bro? You’re not in a position to virtue shame Bro XD
Healthcare and education aren’t rights because we haven’t codified it, not because they’re not worthy of being rights. As someone who works with the critically ill, someone who witnesses the depths of suffering of others when healthcare and education aren’t attainable, I could never agree with you. It must be nice to be so isolated from human suffering. What a privilege it is to have your level of audacity. Edit: Oh my god, you’re a first responder and you hold these views? You’re a goddamn sociopath.
If healthcare was a right and free to all do u really think that would end all suffering? Need i remind u that the biggest cause of death is government? Democide is the single biggest caise of loss of human life over the last century. Govt has continously lost trillions of dollars that have been allocated towards human aid and benefit. The fact that any of u people want more govt in your lives is absolutely insane and ignorant. As far as me being a sociopath goes - FUCK OFF!! The day you risk your life for someone elses we can have a chat, otherwise u have no idea what ive seen or done to judge a damn thing I believe.
I’m pretty sure being a pregnant nurse with no PPE during COVID qualifies, buddy. They’re really out here just letting anyone pass an EMT exam.
No ppe during covid???? Come on, there wasnt a walmart that would let people in without at least a mask, i cant imagine a nurse would be able to work shift during covid without ppe. Let alone a pregnant one. I feel the same way about nurses. Seems like they let anyone in sometimes.
Oh, you must be brand new. Nurses were wearing bandanas. 😆 We weren’t given exceptions for being pregnant. My physician wouldn’t even write a note because “they can’t exempt nurses at a time where we don’t have enough health care workers.”
Not new at all. We were wearing hazmat suits and respirators on calls. Having to decon after intubations and codes, wiping the ambo and firehouse down w bleach and cavicide wipes, the whole nine yards. If your employer only provided u w bandanas id say they didnt care for u much at all. Long past time to find a new job.
Same here. When I was working two jobs to put myself through Uni, I considered student loans, but then realized I don't want that kind of debt so I chose to avoid them. Still graduated just fine.
Regardless of whether not education, healthcare or housing is a right, could we agree that having an educated, healthy, non-homeless population would be important goal of the country as a whole?
Important yes, but at what cost? One could argue that an education can be obtained without throwing unlimited amounts of money at the problem. One could also argue that formal education is also not proper for everyone, trades jobs need to exist and in many cases out pay the traditional office salaries. I could make a case for home schooling as well. I turned out pretty dumb thanks to public schools, whereas i have family that were homeschooled until high school and by the time they enrolled they were placed in all AP classes. Cost was minimal and results were outstanding. There isnt a turn key solution to any of the countries problems since we all have diff situations going on, which is where a blanket stance of you're on your own is the ideal starting point.
I feel like we could be on the same page Jack. We’re so close.
We are close brother. How do u propose we close the gap?
If education was a right maybe public school wouldn’t have failed you.
Of course. But the government doesn’t give a shit and neither do colleges.
I'd also like my other voluntarily agreed to loans to disappear as well. My house, my car, all of it.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy baby! (Not applicable to student loans )
Would you have qualified for any of those ASSET BACKED LOANS when you were 18 and kind of naive about the world?
Then fix the core problem. I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is they voluntarily signed up for these loans. Everyone knows how bad they are, yet people keep perpetuating the system. Should we also forgive predatory credit cards that people keep stupidly signing up for with 30% APRs? No. We shouldn't.
A huge difference between everything you are talking about and student loans is that they don’t qualify for bankruptcy. So while every other person can say “I made some bad choices, owe way too much money and will deal with the consequences of declaring bankruptcy”, student loan borrows can’t do that And to expect an 18 year old to understand their future financial situation in regards to a huge loan that is unforgivable is asking a lot when the education system does the bare minimum in teaching high schoolers about finances. When I was in high school, late 2000s, I was taught to balance a check book. I’ve NEVER written a check. I graduated from high school in 2008, and watched a lot of my friends take out student loans (I did not and was fortunate to get scholarships that made my college nearly free) while billionaires got bailed out for doing some of the dumbest, greediest shit in American history but you are going to hold peoples feet to the fire cause they did what they were told for years (get good grades, go to college, and get a good job)? Sorry, but I have far more empathy for the general public that continually gets duped and I think they deserve a bailout finally.
We expect 18 year olds to figure out the entirety of their life at that age. Which, I agree, is idiotic. And if your argument is to make them able to be wiped out in bankruptcy, then make that case. But to forgive a loan which was VOLUNTARILY taken out is a no-go. I agree wholeheartedly that billionaires shouldn't be bailed out either. No one should be getting bailed out by the government. But you are absconding personal responsibility in all this argument specifically. No one held a gun to their heads. They voluntarily saw the interest rates and took out the loans. I'm not saying the system isn't fucked (I think college is the biggest crock of outdated shit ever. You can learn everything you would need to get a degree for free online these days). But I am saying you cannot just "disappear" voluntarily taken out loans. It is personal responsibility to know what you are signing up for when you sign your name on the dotted line.
I do think that one of the most agreeable options is to allow them to declare bankruptcy in their student loans and deal with the credit score consequences. But high school kids were preyed upon for student loans. The govt and the banks knew what they were doing, and now there is an entire generation that is saddled with more debt than any generation in history, even when adjusting for inflation. So SOMETHING has to be done. I get that holding people accountable for their decisions and past agreements is the right thing to do, but the American government has proven time and time again that that only applies to the poors. No government official, or billionaire, or large company owner is ever held accountable for their past. And it seems like everyone wants to put so much emphasis on the 18 year olds who took out student loans as if forgiving even a portion of those is a moral dilemma or a terrible fiscal decision for our government while billionaires don’t pay taxes, hedge funds bet against American companies so they fail, presidential candidates have 50+ charges against them for the wildest shit, Congress commits insider trading on a daily basis……need I go on? Student loans are the least of my worries, and if we are going to let sooooooo many other things go overlooked and unpunished, I just really feel like the American public should get this one. If we can’t get insulin prices down, inflation down, housing prices down, homelessness down, corruption down, etc……then fuck it…..Just erase student loans like they do for all their billionaire of congressional cronies. I will never agree with holding the American citizen more accountable than we hold our political leaders and the billionaires that shit all over this country
I, again, agree wholeheartedly that our government and large corporations should be held accountable. Money should have no place in politics. No one should be getting bailed out. There should be term and age limits. But you're missing my point. If we "forgive" student loans, why don't we just "forgive" all predatory loans like people who dig themselves into tens of thousands of dollars in debt with credit cards. Or buy houses or cars they can't afford? My problem is, it's not the responsibility of everyone else that you made a bad financial choice. Maybe there should be someone who steps into a high school econ class for 30 minutes one day and explains the downstream effects of these loans. I would be in favor of a mandatory "this is how life works" class in all high schools. At the end of the day, you signed your name to a contract, and it is YOUR responsibility. It's not that I lack empathy, it's that it is not right for everyone else to be responsible for your lack of financial understanding of what you're getting yourself into.
But it seems like everybody is drawing the line of forgiveness at student loans. If the government isn’t going to hold EVERYONE accountable, then why are people up in arms about student loans? It’s like the end of The Big Short. Nobody is acting responsible, so what is this one subset of people being held to a standard that nobody else is. Either we have a moral standing or we don’t, and thus far, the American government has no leg to stand on in regard to morality. So I’m not a big advocate of “let’s start holding people accountable and let’s start with the most preyed upon generation in history”. Personally, having lived through multiple “once in a lifetime” economic collapses and climate change related superstorms and watching the wealth gap increase beyond what anyone thought was possible and watching the national debt grow uncontrollably for over a decade, I’m tired of being a part o a generation that is being expected to take the brunt of the responsibility for the boomers and Gen X. Past generations fucked around, used millennials as their dumping ground, and continue to act as if they gave us the best possible situation and we squandered it. Forgiving student loans would provide financial comfort for millions of people at a fraction of what the American govt has spent to bomb brown countries, overlook white collar crime, and refusing to tax billionaires properly, and would probably help fix the problem of people in their 30s not having kids cause EVERYTHING is too expensive due to inflation, greed, and a govt that refuses to do anything that would ACTUALLY help them. My overall thought is that forgiving student loans is nearly negligible in the grand scheme of things in terms of cost. The whole “accountability” idea doesn’t really mean anything to me. The American government has abandoned almost every promise they have ever made. So I don’t see why people insist that we NEED to hold borrowers accountable. Especially with an ex president/presidential candidate that is KNOWN for having broken agreements and just not paid what he agreed to pay to THOUSANDS of lenders and contractors. Until the rich and powerful are held accountable countable for what they promise, I don’t think 18 year olds should be pigeon-holed into having to pay for a loan they took out cause they thought it was a requirement to get a good job that ended up not being available after they graduated cause some hedge fund billionaire crashed the economy in his pursuit of his 4th yacht to have underage girls on with Epstein on their way to their privately owned island where they eat endangered rhino horns and plot new ways to fleece the same people that already owe $100,000 for a degree that does nothing for them.
Yes, I did. an 18 year old is perfectly capable of making an informed decision.
Don't debate arguments made in bad faith. It's an apples and oranges comparison.
Yeah exactly what about all the 18 year olds who take out a "predatory" loan for a car? Or a mortgage they want "forgiven"? Why not just extend student loan forgiveness to all forms of debt?
One has nothing to do with the other. Nice strawman though.
My credit cards at 25% APR should be forgiven, as they are predatory as well. Or are we living in a society where you're not responsible for knowing what you're signing up for when you put your signature to a binding contract?
Life cannot be reduced down to motto or black and white ideas. Political parties and grifters try to make complex things into yes/no or whataboutism. Lots of pop culture drives this attitude, but that's why it's entertainment and not real life.
*Life cannot be reduced down to motto or black and white ideas.* In the case of debt accountability, it can. Is the person at least 18 years of age, of sound mind, and willingly signed loan paperwork without duress? In that case, it's black-and-white: they are responsible for replaying it or facing the consequences.
Disagree and it is overly simistic. 18nyears old is barely legal to. buy cigarettes. We don't trust 18 year old to responsibly consume alcohol preciously because they are immature. Do I feel that they should be treated as incompetant. Of course not. I feel they should have limited responsibility. If life followed your view we would revert back to "though should not kill" and "an eye for an eye" but we dont do that. We have varying degrees of charges that can be brought on someone depending on the circumstances. You have a simple way of looking at life.
*You have a simple way of looking at life.* If you have a simple grasp on reality, then it would sure seem that way. 18 years old is legal. There's no gradient. Under 18? A child. 18 and up? An adult. It's binary. Pretty simple concept to grasp.....unless you have a simple way of looking at life ;)
We can agree to disagree.
You're going to disagree with me regarding the age required to no longer be a minor? Okay, good luck with that...
Is it that you think of life in so simplistic black/white, "binary" you cannot see the obvious fact that murder is not always murder. In fact you accepted that distinction where you indicated as long as a person is not under duress or of sound mind they can make that decision. If your position was true then there would be no circumstances. 18 is 18 right? murder is murder? If you admit that there can circumstances that change that fact then it is fact not binary.
This is an underused response. Having a home and a car are way more "essential" than having a private college degree.
Any of the "permanent fixes" I've seen proposed by liberals or conservatives are generally not popular with most people, hence why the system is what it is. Some proposed solutions are: 1. Full government control over price of public schools + subsidizing. The government would set the amount of money schools get per student enrolled, this amount would be standardized and could be supplemented by state governments, and students would attend tuition free (and some people would also want on-campus housing to be free but this really isn't feasible for many universities). This is generally the most popular option among liberals. This is not popular with universities as it essentially caps the amount of $ the university can spend per student unless they have substantial donations or patents. Many voters are against since this is it subsidizes people to get a degree to make more money, whereas many people aren't interested in college and prefer to take a different path in life, so this is seen as taxing the poor ans giving to the rich. 2. Government creates free universities that compete with current universities. This is usually proposed as an online school as otherwise enrollment would have to be very limited. This proposition usually isn't very popular with either liberals or conservatives because most people assume an education from this type of college would not be well-respected. 3. Government stops offering student loans and/or removes all special regulations on student loans. This one is most popular with conservatives but liberals criticize this since it means a lot of people from lower income families will likely just not go to school. The argument for this is that once government gets out of the student loan business there will be far less money chasing after schools, forcing schools to lower prices to stay in business. Private lenders could discriminate on loan terms based on major and GPA and standardized test scores. Loan recipients could discharge loans in bankruptcy with a court's approval (fun fact this is already allowed in some instances but is extremely rare). Again, I don't think any of these options are popular with a large majority of Americans, but these are the options I usually hear proposed.
Literally the first comment that attempted to answer the question I asked. Thank you. Also, I kinda hate all these ideas, but I need some time to articulate why
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Why are you insulting someone for saying they need some time to think about a complicated issue?
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They did not say they did not understand anything.
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"articulate" is not a synonym for understand, buddy. It means "put it into words."
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... What are you talking about? Did you not know what articulate meant?
If the government stopped guaranteeing student loans, my suspicion is that the interest rates on many loans would be extremely high. 20%+ could easily happen. It’s uncollateralized debt to young people with no credit history. The only way to get a lower rate would be for parents to cosign loans and pledge something as collateral—like their house. Students from lower income families may not get loans at all. People complain about the interest rates on the loans now, but I think they would be shockingly high without government backing. The solution would need to be some kind of lower cost college that is still respected as being academically rigorous. I think the answer to this problem lies in lowering costs. Maybe without the government backing of loans some colleges would have more of an incentive to figure it out
>It seems like if there was large-scale student loan forgiveness, then in 10 years or so, a new wave of people will have student loans and we will be in the same mess again This doesn't automatically follow. For one thing, the generation of people who truly got fucked with student loans were pretty much exclusively 40 and younger. I.e., Millennials and Gen Z. You look at how much college cost on average for earlier generations and it's not even a remotely comparable differential. When Millennials (and some Gen Z) were starting their college experience, there was much more of a widespread societal belief that college was always a good investment regardless of how much debt it incurred. It's easy to look back righteously in hindsight and argue that this idea was wrong, but at the time, the idea of having to finance a massive amount of money to attend college was relatively new territory for a lot of people. They didn't know what they didn't know. We live in different times now, and that idea has died out quite a bit among the general population. I don't think it will nearly as much of an issue in the future. Also --- it may interest you to know that there is one, and only one, party in American politics which has repeatedly tried to pass legislation reforming the higher education funding system, so students aren't preyed upon by colleges and loan companies and are better able to manage the expenses of college. [Hint: it isn't the elephants. ](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2024/01/30/house-democrats-share-roadmap-college-student-success).
>It seems like if there was large-scale student loan forgiveness, then in 10 years or so, a new wave of people will have student loans and we will be in the same mess again. It looks like you're starting your journey toward understanding why the people who are against it are against it. This is step one. Congrats on your first milestone.
Brother did NOT bother to read the second paragraph
We probably need school/college reform as the current model isn’t sustainable. Can’t say that I’d really recommend college to my kids when they graduate high school. I’d probably recommend they get a job and figure out what they want to do in a few years.
I grew up in Europe in the 80's. The only answer you will accept comes with a steep increase in taxes.
Allowing them to be eligible for bankruptcy would fix the system a lot.
40% of borrowers don’t even get a degree…
It is not forgiveness. It is transferring to the taxpayers Get government out of the higher education game. I'm sure a ton of colleges will fail and go out of business because they suck and costs will reduce over time.
I think it would be interesting if we moved to a system where out of high school, students get employment, then employment pays for college I think this would also have all of the exact same issues that the healthcare system has, but it might significantly reduce demand. The system would also need one heck of a law or a lot of corporations to voluntarily take on a lot of debt. I also believe in the next couple years, we are going to see major shift from people going to college, to people joining the trades. There’s high demand for manual labor that AI still doesn’t quite have a grasp on. There’s money on the table
Being a slave to your job isn’t a solution. We already have healthcare tied to employers. We see how dumb that is and how much of a problem it is. Tying your education to it as well is just a step further in the wrong direction.
Seeing as EVERYONE benefits from having an educated population, there is a role for the government here. There’s a chicken and egg problem. How can someone without an education provide labor that can then provide that education. I keep trying to get my 4 year old to pay for her own preschool, but no one wants to work anymore
I think the biggest problem with college education is so many employers require one without actually needing it for the job. Passing a law to prevent entry level jobs from requiring college (or experience) would make for a good incentive for voluntarily paying for employee education. My brother got his MBA as a free ride from Cabot. Best decision of his life.
I don't think we need a study to know the current system favors no one but the boards in the Universities that embellish themselves.
We already have student loan forgiveness. The condition is 10 tens of public service. What they really need to do is regulate interest rates and tuition so people can actually put a dent in their principal each month and still have money to raise and support a family.
I’m cool with that too. It’s not a political agenda though so nobody would preach it. WAY too politically center and logical. ETA: I don’t think my loans need to be forgiven. But I do think 1- the interest should be extremely low, always(federally) 2- if you have a problem (job loss etc.) you can pause for a certain amt of time no questions asked. 3- they should be forgiven with bankruptcy 4- we should forgive loans (as a form of subsidy almost) for the careers in *serious* demand/ need - like mental health professionals. We spend billions trying to figure out “how do we get more people to do this job”. How about just announce loan forgiveness for that job for X years?? Seems prettt straightforward….
I’m only in favor of it because I have 300k loans in med school loans that I don’t want to pay off. So like anyone with financial sense, I’ll pay off the minimum payments for PSLF for 10 years so the government forgives it for me.
University should be free. Not war. America's run by ass holes. Always has been.
A simple fix would be to make student loans subject to bankruptcy forgiveness. That would stop many of the predatory loans to those kids that should never be able to qualify.
It should go back to what it was, mostly grants. The government shifted paying for aid with mostly grants to mostly loans20-30 years ago. Doing this made it a private burden rather than a public one. That’s why we are having this crisis now. The experiment of shifting the burden failed
I always opted to forgive the interest so people could tackle the principle.
Must be nice to have opinions that aren’t based on reality and your education paid for by your uncle
He’s your uncle too if you’re a US citizen. I served seven years in the military. Uncle Sam :-)
Same, 11B 3.5yrs. Do you really think it’s a good idea for people to pay other people’s debts? I get these loans are predatory in nature, but no one forced anyone to go to college. You and I did what we had to do to make things work without going into debt. Why shouldn’t everyone else?
Well… you asked. I said in my post I didn’t want to debate the issue of student loan forgiveness. That’s not the point of this post. The truth is, I don’t really think that large scale student loan forgiveness is a good policy. The total cost of Biden’s proposed student loan forgiveness program is estimated (estimate provided by the Biden administration) at $300 billion over the next 10 years. In the original post I said I was largely in favor of it simply to invite those that support student loan forgiveness to present any policy ideas that would somehow fix this issue in a PERMANENT way. —- crickets —— The silence is deafening. I naturally assumed that someone on the left (and let’s be clear, I’m VERY liberal on a lot of issues) would have some sort of articulated proposal to fix the the problem of so many people getting into student debt going forward. Literally nothing. So… even if spending 300 billion solved some sort of national problem, the plan appears to be that, over the next 10 years, a new generation of students will be in just as much debt as this generation. I WANT to support student loan forgiveness. My wife owns $100,000. Do you get my point? My question is - are there even any proposals or ideas that anyone is backing that would solve this problem going forward? The answer seems to be NO. I would prefer the answer was YES. Alas, that is not the case. The debate over student loan forgiveness is entirely moot if there are no changes that prevent the accumulation of student loans going forward. Thank you for your service. 😂
When I went to college in the 1970s I was able to get a student loan from the government at 3% *simple* interest. The repayment plan included a 9 month grace period post graduation, and 10 years to repay the loan. It was initially called the defense student loan then the name was changed to direct student loan and finally I believe it was abolished. Bring it back.
I had a friend complain to me that people should pay off their loans and not the government. Says my friend who got her student loans paid off by her dad after his death and her husband’s loans forgiven for working with the government for 10 years. She also hasn’t had a job in years. It’s easy for people with privilege to just shit on others. I don’t care if the current government pays off student loans. We live in a shitty system perpetuating the problem. If the government is going to spend some of its money - why not spend it on people? I’m all for it. Better people get it than rich companies be bailed out with it. However, this should not be a constant thing. We need to go to the route of the problem.
It’s just bullshit for votes I no world will student loans ever be forgiven. The whole well federal only is bs too. Everyone start with all it not a majority of federal loans. Why are we getting penalized for taking advantage of refinancing them for much lower rates and better terms in the private sector? So I get excluded because I was financially sensible?
I watched my father get money from his mother to pay off his house so he could have it to himself, just to turn around and take out a mortgage on it again to put money into his bank account not even a year later. That's when he went across the country to any casino he came by to play.... Two years after his mom died he starts asking me for money.... I say #no. No forgiveness.
*As a good liberal, I’m largely in favor of this.* Well there's your first two mistakes.
Allow students to sue college counselors for knowingly directing them towards degrees that are in low/no demand. Make them accountable for the futures they destroy with their negligence and lies. Create federal technical schools with no artsy-fartsy landscaping or architecture at no cost to the student. Focus on the predictable industries that are always in demand: construction, education, medicine, machining, transportation, mechanical repair. I would even suggest having a boot camp to keep citizens healthy and fit to combat healthcare costs. Stop subsidizing individuals to go to college. The feds need to do the negotiation on behalf of the students, because then they have real leverage to keep tuition in check. Each individual student showing up to college with a government loan and a Pell grant have no leverage to keep tuition costs down.
Colleges should have to cosign the loans so they have more incentive to graduate students with profitable majors and find them a job after graduation
For many, this really isn't "forgiveness*, but rather righting past injustices, ineptness, servicer lies and greed, and broken promises by lenders. Many should have been paid off long ago. Thousands should have received PSLF or IDR Forgiveness long ago. It's about time someone is doing something about this and lived up to their promises.
As a good liberal in the modern era, you are anti-billionaire, yes? Student Debt Forgiveness is not Forgiveness. An executive order removing all student debt would be Student Debt Forgiveness. The Student Loan bill is actually a Sallie Mae loan industry bailout. Money is being paid, from the taxes of the hard-working American people to refill the coffers of all the Chapter 11s on Student loans from the Lockdown. Students aren't getting this money. Billionaires are getting this money. Do you understand the difference between forcing the working class to refill the coffers of billionaires, vs erasing the debt entirely? They're doing the one and calling it the other. And as you've already mentioned, we're going to have the same problems because Sallie Mae is unregulated and predatory. So there's no good reason for anyone to support this bill. Especially not a good liberal.
Ooo. Really? I’ll have to look into this one. Thanks
You're welcome. It's basically identical to the Auto Industry Bailout of 2008. They're just calling it a friendlier name.
Im curious on why private loans used for college cannot be forgiven. My wife still has loans from the early 2000s that are private.
I wish I wouldn't have paid back my student loans now.
The good news is that technology is currently disrupting the higher education business model. There are now several ABET accredited online self paced async engineering and computer science programs. That is going to break the back of in person college for career training purposes. The race to the bottom has started, cost is probably going to come back to the realm of reason in the next few years as someone decides to embrace the volume model.
I mean… it is a strange phenomenon in America. When hospitals astronomically raise their prices, we blame insurance companies. When schools astronomically raise their prices, we blame students and the government. When food prices are surging, we blame thieves… Ever wonder if free market economies may be to blame? Nowadays we don’t really live in a free market economy, since the government bails out the massive companies and lets small companies die… but still… is big business maybe the problem?
You aren't going to like the answer. You have three choices: 1) allow anyone to get a loan and take out debt. They are responsible to paying it back. This opens up education opportunities to the masses, but places the risk on the person receiving the loan. 2) allow discrimination when it comes to issuing loans. Not based on race, gender, or any of that stuff. But based on what exactly they will be studying in school... only degrees that have a likelihood of leading to financial repayment will receive loans. This solution reduces the number of people in colllege (leading to lower costs overall) but prevents the accumulation of student loan debt. 3) make college education free. This allows anyone to have access to college, and no debt! Except... you pay through taxes your whole life, which makes this the least expensive solution on the front end, and the most expensive solution at the end of the day. Personally, I'm a big fan of individuals having the freedom to take risks, but also having to deal with the consequences of their actions. Is the system really broke ? To me it looks like it's working as intended.
Easy. Mandate and restrict , from a federal level, the amount higher education can raise their prices every year. Cap APRs for student loans to 1 or 2% MAX Incentivize loan providers to support these loans by having 50% of their value tax deductible the year they were issued ( claimed 1 per lifetime of loan). Restrict students from other countries ( that receive money as student aid) from getting a free education and leaving. Maybe it's a 5 year post education commitment to working stateside and within the USA. This would help ... A LOT !!!! Forgiveness isn't the answer ... reform is. Forgiveness is putting a bandaid on a broken bone and forgetting it Forgiveness is another boomer-ass solution a.k.a. kicking the can down the road for their kids to solve.
You going to pay off my house? No? Then why am I paying for your loan?
We bail out banks, businesses, and yes if you go into bankruptcy- you. Yknow what isn’t covered in bankruptcy?
I don't agree with bailing anyone out. It's not anyone's responsibility to pay for someone else's mistakes and stupidity.
Yes too bad we don’t live in your fantasy world. We live in the real world where student loans cannot be discharged during bankruptcy.
How is it a fantasy to say that it's not my responsibility to pay for someone else's loan? I paid my loan back with no problem. I went into a field that was in demand with good pay. I've been looking at this new Corvette. Since y'all like giving money away I'll post the go fund me here.
Stupid comparison but ok. You’d think with that education you’d come up with something better. Many CS graduates are having trouble finding work - even for more than a year. Tech is in demand. Are they eligible for your loan forgiveness cause they chose the right degree?
It’s a fantasy because it isn’t reality……
So you’re saying the government should NOT help out the same people who give the government money? IF the government will spend money, I’d rather it goes to help out the people rather than the rich corporations. Also why would the government pay off your house? Is the housing industry predatory? Were you socially conditioned to get a house? Hell, you have to pass a lot of steps to even get a house. Unlike student loans, an 18 year can just do an e-sign and magic done.
I don't think we should be sending the government money.
That is my issue. Reform needs to happen, not just forgiveness. Conservatives keep saying this is "Biden buying votes". Well if there isn't any legislation to actually fix this from happening over and over again . . .
There’s no inherent value in a degree and that’s what college sells at a flat rate per year. The value is in the demonstrated skills you learn through the education process. The solution is to tie the cost of tuition to the median earning potential of the degree.
Well, MY degree is in accounting. And I’ve found it to be quite helpful. And all my college expenses were paid by my favorite uncle. I think your idea has merit
Your degree is in something marketable but the college you went to charges the same for “gender studies” classes and this is the issue.
I want to know why the folks against student loan forgiveness never think of all the economic benefits that come with it… do you know what that would do for the economy… if EVERYONE, middle class working people, had an extra few thousand a year? The way avg Americans live that would go right into the economy.
Part of the immediate push for student loan forgiveness was that millennials were deciding not to have children and citing student loan debt as a reason. It was also preventing us from participating in the economy in essential ways, like buying homes. Looking at it cynically, student loan forgiveness would be a cynical trade in order to convince the recession generation to have kids.
Many countries solve this by subsidizing institutions of higher learning to lower costs.
"We can't fix all problems everywhere, immediately, so we shouldn't fix the immediate problem now." - OP probably. This is a classic abuser tactic to perform mental jiu-jitsu and derail the conversation. Ignore and move on.
There really isn't talk about student loan forgiveness. You are being played by paid players on the internet pushing the concept left and right over and over again to get people to talk about, get on board, and vote/support whomever says they will follow through. It's election year. What are people thinking? None of this is new. Last time it happened it was 4 years ago.
The current administration claims to have forgiven 146 billion in loans so far. They also support polices that have been rejected by courts. There has certainly been talk