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Student loan forgiveness

Started by GSOgymrat, March 02, 2021, 11:25:08 AM

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GSOgymrat

President Biden is proposing $10,000 in student loan forgiveness and many Democrats are pushing for at least $50,000, which would completely eliminate the burden of three in four borrowers. I’m conflicted regarding student loan forgiveness, mainly because I’m unclear on whether student loan forgiveness is the best way to address the consequences of the exorbitant costs of higher education. Will student loan forgiveness stimulate the economy? Help the younger generations have the same lifestyle as the older generations? Help correct for racial disparities? Make voters happy?

Clearly, there is a problem with the cost of education in the US and how it has been funded. Millennials are on track to be the first generation in modern history to end up poorer than their parents. Student loans are delaying retirements. They are suppressing the housing market and suffocating new business creation. They are leading young people to delay getting married and having children. They are also widening the country’s racial wealth gap because a higher share of Black college students take out loans and those loans tend to be bigger because Black students have access to less familial wealth.

So why not forgive student all loan debt? One concern is student loan forgiveness helps the wealthy rather than the poor. A majority of student-loan debt is held by Americans toward the top of the income scale, with 56 percent held by those with graduate degrees. Should the government be giving more money to the people who have access to the most lucrative jobs?

There is also the concern that student loan forgiveness is not fair. It is unfair to people who paid off their student loans; unfair to people who will take them out five or 10 years from now; unfair to people who declined to take them out and worked their way through school; unfair to people who chose community college instead of a private institution; unfair to people with private student-loan debt that the federal government could not disappear without an act of Congress.

Another concern with across-the-board student loan forgiveness is that, in the absence of other reforms, forgiving debt sets a precedent. Student borrowers (and the colleges they attend) may rightly expect another cancelation to happen at some point in the future when outstanding debt again climbs too high. This creates an incentive to borrow more in order to take advantage of that future jubilee and it gives colleges another reason to hike tuition.

I would like to see some kind of student loan forgiveness even if it is a Band-Aid fix. My preference would be targeted student loan forgiveness that is passed by Congress rather than executive action. There need to be eligibility requirements that target the lower-income borrowers. I would also prefer forgiveness for more undergraduate loans rather than graduate loans. I would like to see student loan forgiveness for all students who attended historically black colleges and universities, which have been underfunded for decades.

What are your thoughts?

Mermaid

I haven't been able to come up with a good set of thoughts for this question. I have about 10k in student loan debt myself, but I can afford to pay it back and plan to do so. Not everyone is in that situation. I understand how easy it is to rack up crazy debt, and so many of my coworkers (with medical doctorates) pay half their salaries back to loan companies and will continue to do so for at least 15-20 more years.
It's a weird conundrum because people cant get jobs without college degrees or trade certs, so college/trade school is almost a necessity. Loan forgiveness seems like a solution at the wrong end of the problem for me, but I support it. I think.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Gawdzilla Sama

I had over $100,000 U$D written off when I graduated with my MA. All I had to do was work for the government for free, which I had already been doing.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Mr.Obvious

Regarding 'fairness' in your fourth paragraph...

I'll respond in kind as I do to those in my team. Namely: is that a reason not to do it? If you can either help person a or neither person a nor b, is the fact that you can't help person b really a reason not to help a? Really?
My social workers have to work in a - personcentric fashion. They have to struggle to get exceptions through, to help those people. They Caan never get everyone out of the margin of society. But it is their job to get as many of those that they can. Sorry to those that we inevitably fail. And I will always try to support new and better ways to reach more people in significant matters.
But for Pete's sake. Imagine you had a doctor who said: I could cure your cancer, but it's not fair to those with incurable cancer or those who had it before  our medicine got more advanced. Madness, innit?

"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

GSOgymrat

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on March 02, 2021, 01:32:18 PM
I had over $100,000 U$D written off when I graduated with my MA. All I had to do was work for the government for free, which I had already been doing.

That's great!

I didn't take any loans for my undergrad degree but from 1992-94 I borrowed $28K to go to graduate school. It took 10 years to pay it off.

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on March 02, 2021, 01:49:17 PM
Regarding 'fairness' in your fourth paragraph...

I'll respond in kind as I do to those in my team. Namely: is that a reason not to do it?

Clearly I agree because I do think there should be some form of loan forgiveness. However, I don't see this as helping person A or person B. As Mermaid said, student loan forgiveness is a solution at the wrong end of the problem. It's like the roof is leaking and rather than repairing the roof we're buying bigger buckets. Instead of forgiving loans we could make tuition at state universities free.

Mr.Obvious

Quote from: GSOgymrat on March 02, 2021, 02:16:27 PM
That's great!

I didn't take any loans for my undergrad degree but from 1992-94 I borrowed $28K to go to graduate school. It took 10 years to pay it off.

Clearly I agree because I do think there should be some form of loan forgiveness. However, I don't see this as helping person A or person B. As Mermaid said, student loan forgiveness is a solution at the wrong end of the problem. It's like the roof is leaking and rather than repairing the roof we're buying bigger buckets. Instead of forgiving loans we could make tuition at state universities free.

Well, as I mentioned, there may be other better solutions to work on, that I'd agree. But in lieu of them, already do what you can. Always do what you can. If you have the option to push through a non perfect improvement, go for it. Doesn't mean stop fighting or call it a day.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

SGOS

My wish would be that we make college affordable by funding it a level we did in the past when we were building a "More Perfect Union."  It cost a lot, but America was getting stronger.  We built interstate highways that cost a pretty penny too.  Now America is richer, but politicians are saying we can't afford maintaining infrastructure.  It's like America is getting poorer.  Republicans have made people think taxes are too high.  Maybe they are for some, but not for the 1% that holds 90% of the wealth.

GSOgymrat

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on March 02, 2021, 02:27:40 PMAlways do what you can. If you have the option to push through a non perfect improvement, go for it. Doesn't mean stop fighting or call it a day.

Agreed. How expensive is higher education in Belgium?

Mr.Obvious

Quote from: GSOgymrat on March 02, 2021, 05:50:58 PM
Agreed. How expensive is higher education in Belgium?

Relatively cheap. I mean, it still costs money. But what is intended is that if you apply and you don't have the means, you get a scholarship, regardless of your promise.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

PickelledEggs

Since it's the governments doing, that college costs so much, it's right that they undo the bullshit with loan forgiveness.

Anyone who does more than 2 seconds of thinking understands that the reason there is no draft and will not be a draft, is because they cause college to be so expensive. It funnels people in to the military for the reason that Gawdzilla said: it forgives your college expenses, if you serve.

Why draft people, when you can make them think it was their choice? (Even if it was a lack of choice, from not being from a family of high wealth)

In the words of SOAD "why do they always send the poor"

But yes, they do need to make college less expensive. It is overly expensive right now. The loan forgiveness is a bandaid to something that can be fixed by the government mandating a cap on tuition costs. A low cap. At least for community college.

Gawdzilla Sama

I joined the Navy out of high school because the Y-donor would never have paid for me to attend college when he didn't finish the 6th grade. After I retired I went to Purdue and got three degrees. When people told me "you should have gone to college instead of the Navy" I just laughed.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

PickelledEggs

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on March 03, 2021, 11:49:25 AM
I joined the Navy out of high school because the Y-donor would never have paid for me to attend college when he didn't finish the 6th grade. After I retired I went to Purdue and got three degrees. When people told me "you should have gone to college instead of the Navy" I just laughed.
Yes. As I said. College is too expensive, so that people that can't afford it, go in to the military because that is their best bet of getting a full education.

You couldn't afford it without going in to the Navy and that is exactly what I am saying about the whole college expense thing.

GSOgymrat

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on March 03, 2021, 11:49:25 AM
I joined the Navy out of high school because the Y-donor would never have paid for me to attend college when he didn't finish the 6th grade. After I retired I went to Purdue and got three degrees. When people told me "you should have gone to college instead of the Navy" I just laughed.

I almost went to Purdue. I had a full 4-year scholarship from the Air Force in nuclear engineering and decided on North Carolina State University, mainly because it was close to my family. Four years of college followed by four years in the military gaining experience and then working in the private sector. My parents were understandably horrified when I dropped my scholarship, quit ROTC, switched my major to psychology, and came out. If I had gone to Purdue I couldn't have afforded tuition but at NCSU I was able to work, go to school, and not take out loans. In 1984 my tuition and fees at NCSU were $386.50 per semester.

Cassia

My first semester at junior college cost $30/credit hour and a used text book was about $15. Part time job paid it all. When I enrolled for my master's degree 15 years later, I think it was about $1,000/hour and a book was over $100. Insanity. My employer picked that up, but I still paid taxes on it as if it was income.

SGOS

#14
My first year of college was at a Jr. College where I lived. Tuition was $15 a semester and books were loaned, and I lived at home.  The college occupied 1 half of the third floor of my Chicago area high school, but in spite of the high school type situation, the professors were competent and demanding.  I didn't realize it at the time, but it turned out be more challenging than my following years at the University, although nowhere near as interesting, where many of the professors were the best instructors I had ever seen. 

But $30 for a year's worth of college credits, all of which transferred, must be a record of some sort.  Of course this was way back before the inflation of the 70s.  The university where that I attended next was on the quarter system, and if I remember right, the whole cost of a a quarter including room and board was somewhere around $400 ($1200 a year), which seemed like a lot of money then, but working for the Forest Service during the summer, and with all the help my parents could give me, both my parent's and I never had to take out loans. 

My senor year, I changed my major to education and did qualify for what they called National Defense Loans, which I didn't have to pay back because I taught in a system where most of the students were from low income families.  I was not required to make payments and 20% of the loan was forgiven each year for 5 years.  But the amount I borrowed my senior year was only $1000.  Rates were so cheap, it made sense to borrow that money, rather than to use my own.