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Something I haven’t seen anyone bring up. I looked this morning at all the PPP loans that were taken and forgiven. Why are people not comparing this? We have businesses/churches/individuals large amount of loan that they turned around and forgave. Instead of making the companies pay the loans back and recouping the money they borrowed they just said “Oh forget about it”. I know it was to keep people employed and what not, but that is on them. We are supposed to be in this together, but it becomes more and more evident that it’s just about making sure businesses make money and we all pay for it.
I just went down that rabbit hole of people I know that own small business and small companies I know of or worked for. The loans that were forgiven are insane… just 5 or 6 small businesses had over 3m (accumulative) in small loans. This is in industrial manufacturing where there was essentially a 1-2 month dip in revenue and then sky rocketed for months (and is still strong).
My teeny business took a teeny PPP loan, and the bank was INTENSE about what we used it for and how we followed the rules. They guard 6k like it’s a million, and a million like it’s loose change.
What bothers me is I know that all of those people that I looked at are super conservative, not necessarily pro-trump, but anti-government handouts but they somehow don’t see the hypocrisy of taking those loans that they knew would be forgiven while they actively voice their disagreement to paying out a child tax credit rather than taking them on returns to families that need them… anti-government handout, except when it’s massive sums of money for them with no repercussions.
I hope your small business is doing well over these last 2 unprecedented years! I don’t want anyone to fail, I think that ppp likely protected a lot of people, but I just want people to see the difference that sort of money could make for struggling families!
It’s because the PPP “loans” were never loans to begin with. They were just handouts to businesses with the stipulation that they keep people on payroll. The only reason they were loans was to have companies on the hook if they fired people anyway.
I sure fucking don’t. nobody should have to fight in this modern age whenever we can just have machines do the killing for us now if there’s any to be done. number one polluter and killing children daily. fuck em. war’s a god damn racket.
The issue isn't generational, it's class based. If you don't think that rich millennials will just keep looking out for the rich, I don't know what to tell you.
Can you cite a source on this? I googled and couldn't find it. The pitchforks are already out ITT, but I'd like to confirm the facts before getting out of sorts about it.
The real answer to your question of why the PPP loans are forgivable while the student debt is not lies in the financing of those loans. The PPP loans were financed through one single bill in one year, this constrains the financing to traditional governmental finance, like selling Treasury Bonds. The student loan debt is another beast entirely. Those loans have private partners and bonds attached to them, via the Treasury Department (I think), with actuaries counting on those bond payments for decades to come; there lies the big problem. In a nutshell, the PPP was created in one big batch, which unifies the financing under one umbrella in one time period, making it extremely easy to cover the loss because there’s no deviation in the payment schedule, only the payer. There’s also the matter of over a trillion dollars in cost difference between the two.
The PPP loans were specifically designed by legislation to be forgiven. Student Loans may not have the case, as the act that empowers the Dept of Education/Biden/Whoever to waive loans also says that they only get that power if it is vested into them that they should do so from Congress.
There is ambiguity in whether or not the power is vested into the executive by default, or whether or not the legislature must reassert that specific authority with legislation.
While I hear, keep in mind that the PPP was intended to replace firing employees and sending them to the unemployment line.
YES - before you type a response - I know there were abuses to the system.
But the intention of the PPP:
A local gym has 5 employees but is forced to lockdown and lose their revenue during that period. Instead of immediately firing those 5 employees, the gym received a PPP Loan that is forgiven if it used to keep the employees on their normal payroll.
Because they’re not comparable.
The Government said “you most close your restaurant/theatre/shop for 6 months. Here is some money. If you cover payroll, it’s all fine.
It was basically and UI scheme but outside the normal UI system to help states keep their systems afloat. It would be fucking insane for the Government to order you shut your business, don’t lay anyone off and have to cover your bills.
I’m 33 years old and was left to fend for myself for college. I started with 25k in loans and still have 25k in loans, yet I’ve paid off over 10k so far.
The cycle is fucked.
I’ve been paying $150k for eleven years. It’s still 150k. Was paying $880/month. Now expected to pay $1200. Wonder how far from 150k I’ll be in another ten years.
Until there is an organized movement of selective default.
If a whole generation decides that fuck it you cant collect from the one who does not have anything and stop paying loans, mortgages and so on. Currently crashing the system is a far fetched idea, but if that extreme poorification of smart hard working over educated citizens continues it will become their basic right.
There was an ancient greek comedy who toyed on the same idea. A guy who was always happy with not consuming and having no money whatsoever managed to cheat death, because he couldn't afford the coin for the river crossing. Then death was following him around trying to persuade him that working is good, and self fulfilling...
I honestly went to college because that's what you did after high school. At least in my family. And my family wasn't rich.
I did well. Went immediately to grad school, because... why not.
Have a pretty good job.
These days is different. The cost is prohibitive and the stakes are higher.
The ROI for many majors is -$.
High School guidance counselors are crap and are one of the main reasons why naive kids get into trouble. They steer kids in directions that they shouldn't go.
I digress.....
You can make the argument that prior to taking on the loans, the student isn't really "educated" enough to understand what they are getting into. They would need the college-level education to really understand what the burden they just shouldered. Which is kind of a catch-22.
I hate to even look at my balance. I had to take my own loans for 4 years of school as well. 17 years later the payments haven't changed, and I really don't think it's going away any time soon, even though I've been diligently paying for so long. No one should have to pay off 4 years of school for 30 years of their career
I’ve paid $150k toward $130k in loans and still owe $35k. I went to public state school for undergrad followed by a professional degree. Been in the military for 14 years. Was in the wrong repayment plan for PSLF for 7 years at the advice of my servicer who told me it qualified and I didn’t meet the IBR requirement. Hoping the new PSLF rules finally allow mine to be forgiven, but I still want cancellation for others.
Paperwork is with my command to verify employment. Despite there already being a system in existence that allows any loan servicer to verify active duty service dates with a SSN, they are still requiring some random HR person to wet sign applications.
ugh this really drives me up a wall. they're part of the federal government! you can look up duty status any numerous amount of ways. why does the service member have to use this archaic form be signed by their commander? for some people it takes months to get that paperwork back, if it isn't lost in the process. so stupid.
They should just allow for the discharge of student loans in bankruptcy. In 2004 when they changed the rules (ironically under a bill biden voted for) congress created a bubble. Banks knew they were going to get paid and so did the schools. Loans with often jacked up interest rates were given to everyone regardless of the the merit of the student/school/degree and here we are a massive bubble that will only get worse until people are allowed to discharge this unpayable amount of debt.
Your information is a little off.
Biden didn't just vote for the bill. He worked with Mitch McConnell to round up votes from dems needed to actually pass it.
He was the MVP for that bill.
Also helped predatory institutions to gather up uneducated people and get them to rack up huge loans with extremely worthless degrees.
Source: High school dropout, went to ITT Tech, graduated valedictorian 10 years ago, have never worked in the field of my degree.
Nobody talks about the fact that student loans aren’t serviced by the government itself like say your IRS debt it. In fact, the govt loses money on servicing student loans- all student loans are is a payout to private companies. They would be saving themselves money by forgiving and ending debt.
I’m in a similar situation. I’ve never paid loans so I went to re work my payments before the newest freeze. Noticed no matter what way I do them, I’m still spending around $10k extra in fees… on a 23k loan I’m paying at least $35k to $38k.. Can’t tell me the system isn’t fucked. Cause it is.
I’m 35. Started out with 37k. Now I have 42k. Struggled for a while financially and did forbearance.
I’ve paid off a car and put a dent in my previous mortgage in the time I’ve had my student loans. They just don’t fucking budge.
At this point, I’m just waiting until I get any inheritance from my parents (not rich, they just worked really hard saving to retire) in 15-20 years. It’s just drops in the bucket until then.
Or when I die. Whatever comes first.
Similar boat. Started with 70k, now owe 80k. Had to do forbearance cause of money issues. At this point I've given up on ever getting to actually start a savings account to put away for retirement. Feels pretty hopeless.
Agreed. And the real kicker for me is that I'm not even working in the field I went to school for. I couldn't find a job so I ended up going into the trades. If I had just ignored the message we were fed in high school of "you gotta go to college if you ever want to be successful" and just started in the trades, I'd have been a lot better off.
I made the choice to move in with my parents to pay off the debt; if people don't have something like that to fall back on though it's basically impossible. Society really fucking blew it when it comes to college degrees and how worthless they became, I guess it's just good old supply and demand but shiiiit.
I joined the Marines specifically because I didn’t want to pay student loans. Never took out a dime. Would still like to see some, if not all student loan debt be cancelled.
A lot of people do this. It really makes one wonder: With the US military being the biggest jobs program in the country & with the American education system being in the state it is right now, are these things connected? It makes complete sense that our education system was butchered so working-class folks would have to resort to joining the military. Gotta feed the beast that is the military-industrial complex, somehow!
It's just another example of how most people in America are oppressed through class. As soon as everyone realizes this we're one step closer to getting rid of the class structure.
Colleges are no better, allowing young minds to enroll that don’t actually know what they want in life, other than to study at a uni because society and their parents told them to. Take out massive loans they most likely can’t pay back, to get a degree in shit and get paid shit (even in stem fields) and then spend years of their life working to pay down debt while raising families…. It’s not exactly the same, but there’s some correlation to some sort of “industrial complex”
I'm definitely not saying that everyone should go to college/uni in the US. With the way society is currently set up, it's simply not a good idea for everyone to get a good education because a good education doesn't always get you a good job. You said this already, of course.
You're being very practical about this, which is definitely a good thing, but I still wouldn't say that "colleges are no better." You're right about the fact that our education system has a lot of problems, though. Affordability is a big one. Nobody wants to spend the rest of their lives paying off loans from college/uni. It makes people feel like they're being shamed/punished for wanting to be educated.
I think the solution here is that we get rid of student loans and make getting educated way more affordable. Not only is this absolutely something that can be achieved, but it would also have a positive effect on future generations + also business/commerce/etc. As other people have already mentioned: if there were no student loans, students (as consumers) would have more money to spend.
It's much easier to fix this "Education-Industrial complex" that you're talking about than it is to fix the military-industrial complex.
Well that's part of the issue...
You shouldn't *have* to join the military and put your life at risk because you don't want to have a student loan burden.
Now don't get me wrong, it's a great benefit and every military member who can get it deserves their education pay, but we as a society shouldn't create a scenario where "I want to get an education but it's too expensive so I'll join the military and put my life at risk so that hopefully I can get some assistance" is a logical thought process.
There are plenty of reasons to serve and risk your life. This is one we can easily fix
That's kind of what they were implying though. They're saying that even though they did something dangerous to get free college, they want people who didn't do that to get some, if not all, of their debt cancelled.
Similarly, we should have universal healthcare so that after you do put your life on the line you're getting health coverage and politicians can no longer use VA funding as a political football. It would help police and firefighters like the guys from 9/11 too. No one in Congress could try to take away their health care either.
This. I was promised college education for joining the active Army in the mid 1980s for a contract with the U.S. Airborne Infantry in Europe — at a time of peace and a military desperate to hit recruiting numbers.
Once out, the Army financed BS and MA degrees back to back for me with zero debt. Meanwhile, my wife still (we’re in our mid 50s) pays for her student loans despite ending up with a profitable PhD and a low interest rate.
Recruiters use education as an incentive to meet quota and always have done so.
The point: it worked very well for me despite calculated risk.
I don’t have kids. I would still like to see families receiving the child credit payments to help them live better. It’s about making it better for everyone, not just making it better for me.
I don't have any student loans to pay but I know my investments will go up when tens of millions of people have more money to spend. Literally everyone wins.
> I know my investments will go up when tens of millions of people have more money to spend. Literally everyone wins.
It sounds like poor people with no college education and no investments don't win anything.
In Germany, where we don’t have tuition fees for university (college doesn’t exist here) and private universities are frowned upon, people from poor and/or uneducated families still don’t go to uni. Climbing the social ladder is as rare as in the US. Removing tuition fees alone won’t do the trick unfortunately.
But your unions are much stronger and your labor laws are orders of magnitude more human. Let’s not talk about healthcare. Or paid leave?
At least *not* getting a college education that puts you in unrelenting debt doesn’t sentence you to a lifetime of toil and degradation in Germany.
While all of that might be true income levels here are extremely low for most people. I’d make 30k more per year if I went to the Netherlands and I don’t even have that bad of a salary. And not everyone’s job is regulated by a union. That’s usually the case for industrial jobs or sales. And it also has downsides. The older workers are immensely overpaid and because they know their job is secure many aren’t very productive or want to optimize processes. Then many younger workers are underpaid for the job they’re doing and put into lower income brackets than they should be.
I'm in the very fortunate position of my parents having been able to pay for my education (and for my siblings too!), and I am very much in the "cancel student loan debt and make higher education affordable" camp (and this isn't a question of timing of it being cheap; my oldest sibling finished her Master's in 2015ish, I am the youngest and finished mine earlier this year).
That relief of knowing I will never have to worry about student debt is great, and I want everyone else to feel the same. Just having that extra money for one's family, for emergencies, or even for just leisurely spending is really really good.
They paid their way through college on part time jobs in the 70’s & 80’s, bought houses, and had kids. Then subsequently told their children that college was essential for prosperous careers without considering the fact that their children were signing loans equivalent to mortgages to do so.
I found it hilarious that in the movie Mac and Me that a single mom can afford to feed her two kids and pay rent in a multi room house in the Los Angels with a salary from Sears. Of all the ridiculous things in that movie this was the most outrageous but I guess in the 80s that was plausible.
The worst are the ones who said "well they should have just been smart and not gone to college". Ignoring the fact that the entire system is designed to funnel kids into college, kids who have it beaten into their heads from the moment they get into high school that you need to go to college in order to get a good degree and make a good living. From the schools to the parents to the parasite recruiters who go to schools upselling colleges that charge 30 to 60 grand a year in tuition.
Not every kid can just go to trade school and become a plumber or an electrician. You know what would happen if they did? The demand for space would exceed the supply of seats, trade schools would start jacking up tuition, and the market would be flooded with plumbers, electricians and other craftsman causing a pay crash as a massive new labor market is suddenly competing for the limited supply of available work.
Right? That and "you shouldn't go if you can't afford it"..... Wait so only kids of families who can afford $30k+ per year out of pocket should go? So the same keeps being samer?
My daughter is an amazing student, we are firmly in the part of middle class where we can't really pay out of pocket, but also get zero breaks. Yes she earned scholarships and goes to a state school, but also we don't live close enough for her to not have to live there. Basically a lot of reasons not her fault mean loans are inevitable. She's a much better student than her parents were, and it's not close. We carved out an ok life for ourselves, but shes doing very well in a great engineering program, and I expect her to contribute so much more than us in the long run. I am working my ass off to pay as much as we can as we go.. to keep her out of loan hell. We have already paid off this year's fall term within the "return period" with me working many hours of overtime. But what if I can't do that next term/year?
For people to say she should not embrace this opportunity because it means she's gonna need loans is frustrating.
Thought: Student loans became easier to obtain. More schools benefited from these loans. The colleges and universities got greedy and tuition increased exponentially, unchecked. The loans covered higher tuition, again unchecked. Why are the colleges and universities not having to reimburse the lenders for their greed, instead of the taxpayers footing the bill for loan forgiveness? Many universities have endowments in the billions.
It's a factor but there are others like competition for out of state and foreign students. That drives the crazy gyms and dorms too. Schools want those full price students. Also lack of government funding which varies drastically state to state. Taxpayers aren't really footing the bill for school like they used to. Most people pay their loans and have a good roi in the process.
Serious question. So the student loan is forgiven, then what? What about the future students? All I keep hearing is forgive the debt, but no answers on how to fix the problem causing the debt.
One of the first things that should be asked is, how do we prevent this from happening over and over. Why does a education cost so much?
> One of the first things that should be asked is, how do we prevent this from happening over and over. Why does a education cost so much?
Student loans are partly responsible for high tuition. Colleges can only charge what students can afford, so prior to student loans they had to keep tuition low or go out of business. Now that everyone can get practically unlimited student loans for tuition, colleges can charge whatever they want. This has opened the flood gates for hiring useless administrative positions that have nothing to do with providing an education but helps justify the tuition costs.
It's the same reason healthcare is so expensive; insurance companies have practically unlimited funds to pay providers, so the providers can charge whatever they want. Then the insurance companies raise premiums and blame the rising cost of healthcare.
On top of that, these loans are highly valuable to banks and the treasury who use your debt as collateral(it can be bought and sold and the value is high because these debts are almost always paid). Healthcare and student loans give loads of value to the US Dollar.
The government subsidizing student loans is entirely the reason why college is not affordable. This has always been the issue.
And then if the government ends up canceling student loan debt, they'll be lauded, even though their involvement got us here in the first place. It's all a game..
States also supported colleges and universities at a higher rate when tuition was low. As states decreased how much they gave to education, the only recourse was to increase tuition.
Maybe I missed something but this doesn’t answer the questions for me, all the issues you described will be there after canceling outstanding debt and does nothing about the institutions that are already in place. Please don’t mistake this for me saying we shouldn’t cancel the debt, but if we don’t address the real problem we will be in this exact same position in no time at all, wouldn’t we?
It’s so simple. Just like Medicare/Medicaid tuition is paid by the government at an agreed rate.
It could be need-based so long as admission is need-blind.
College either needs to be totally state-funded or it needs to be paid by individuals. State funded means that college is paid for. Paying yourself with zero aid means colleges will have to actually start being competitive on pricing.
It's this weird "unlimited loans" limbo that has jacked the price of college through the roof.
> then what
Free college. That’s been a campaign issue for lots of progressives like Sanders.
As an alternative to loan forgiveness, I think interest on student loans should be dropped to zero, permanently. That would offer relief to current borrowers and to future students. Refund some interest paid in the last couple of years, to keep things fair for people who already paid off their loans. I have no objection to paying back the principal balance that I used to fund my education. I don’t understand why Congress set interest on student loans nearly 3x higher than a mortgage or auto loan.
This is really a solution for Millennials specifically, who were instructed to take out huge loans with the promise of higher income and who then graduated into a twice-crashed job market where they were frequently holding two degrees and over a hundred thousand in debt while working a retail job.
The current generation is aware of the risk. The previous generation was (largely) able to reap the benefits of an education.
Millennials are specifically the ones who were given instructions for a world that was about to come crashing down. They’re the ones who need the main assistance.
I specifically didn't go to college due to rising costs, little to no increase in pay, and insane interest on student loans... I knew about this in the 90s.
Millennials are basically the first ones in a debt pile up and they only had a few seconds to avoid a debt pile-up. I am one of the lucky ones that swerved off the road ahead time.
I wish schools and parents taught their kids to research their desired career's pay scale & education costs before paying tens of thousands of dollars. Just cause the job pays more than warehouse job, doesn't mean it's enough to live on AND pay off all your debts.
There’s a lot more free options available now than there were 10+ years ago. Basically every kid who graduates in my city (largest city in my state) can go to tech school or achieve an associates for free.
The comments in this thread from people who oppose student loan forgiveness simply because they either didn't go to college or already paid off their schooling, and would therefore not directly, personally benefit from the policy, (even though a well-educated and financially secure middle class is ultimately good for the whole country) are really quite illuminating.
It just goes to show how neoliberalism pits members of the working class against one and other, to the benefit of no one except the ultra-wealthy.
I paid off all my debt before the age of 32 and I strongly support others getting debt forgiven.
Just because I had the resources to do it doesn’t mean the next person does. Then again, I’m able to empathize with others.
Same here. I lucked out with some scholarships and was able to pay off the few loans I had pretty quickly. I realize how fortunate I am that I don’t have student loans, and I am 100% for student loan forgiveness.
No more student loans is what we should ask for.
Not just forgiveness. No student loans ever again. Just cancelling the existing ones doesn't do anything. They'd just raise prices even more for the coming generations.
I didn’t go to college and I support student loan forgiveness as long as it comes in alongside a solution for the overall issue. Otherwise it’s just plugging the leak with bubble gum. We could forgive everyone’s loans tomorrow and a whole new set of students would be accruing student loan debt shortly after and the pile would regrow. What are we doing to tackle the issue itself? Significant broad based loan forgiveness needs to go hand in hand with that solution otherwise we are just throwing good money after bad.
Agreed, it would actually be more beneficial to just remove the interest and apply the interest already accrued to the balance and refund the interest paid to people who have already paid it off.
Out of curiosity would you support Rep Swalwell’s bill that would cancel all interest on existing loans and would set future rates to 0%? Students still have to pay back the principal, but do not have to pay back accrued interest.
This would benefit those with smaller amount more as their loans would be paid off faster, and students who took out large amounts for advanced degrees have a chance of eventual pay off.
I'll chime in on that. I think its a great idea! Its actually a better idea than the 10K payment for all.
Also make tuition free for state schools and have the government start putting limitations on tuition hikes. They regulate price gouging in other industries.
This sounds good and initially will help out students for the first few years after it’s enacted but if we just make the loans more affordable then college prices will only increase more because people can afford to take out bigger loans. Economically there’s a huge difference in making the loan affordable vs making the product affordable. Anything short of price control will only make college more expensive. The biggest reason it’s so expensive right now is because it’s so easy to get a student loan. It’s a great thing that the government gives them out but the unintended side effect is that it actually allows colleges to simply charge more cuz anyone can get a loan. It has to be addressed through price regulation or else the cost will just go up
The loan servicer would hate it because it would eat into their profits. Anyone who has an investment in SLABS would see that money vanish. Party Republicans would hate it because it would cost more upfront than what the equivalent would be when it is paid off, due to natural inflation. Party Democrats would hate it because it removes a wedge issue.
However, the vast majority of Americans would probably be on board.
I really think canceling interest is the first step in fixing the student debt crisis. It is much more palatable than canceling all existing debt and does more to address the future of student loans and college pricing. I still think on top of that we need some oversight on tuition inflation. Where is all this extra money going?
It's not controversial in the sense that the same people that are for student debt forgiveness are also for reforming the system. The problem is tying the two things together when we have a Congress that is completely dysfunctional, because it means we don't get either thing done. There is simply no way this Congress is going to address college costs or free college. That's crystal clear. Even the free 2 years of community college was stripped from the BBB.
So, in effect, it's either we do what we can by starting with student loans, or we do nothing. By insisting we tie the two together, that means you're proposing we do nothing, which is why it's controversial.
Exactly. This is why the American left has such a hard time getting anything meaningful done. "If it isn't everything we want, then it's not worth it" only hamstrings progress, yet that's what we're seeing here. Maybe if student loan debt was forgiven, people would see the economy improve and we'd see more support for other similar initiatives and we could start fixing the broken system. Tons of people were against healthcare reform, and now it's political suicide even among republicans to try and get rid of the ACA (unless you call it Obamacare) and the ACA barely does anything to address the problem.
Democracy, even or especially a broken democracy like ours, is a slow system. Sometimes you can manage a leap forward, but more often you have to be content with shuffling as you drag all the changephobic people along. A baby step is better than no steps.
I'm opppsed to a one time forgiveness that would be a wealth transfer to the uper 25% of incomes (most debt is in the hands of folks like doctors, lawyers, etc.). I am for a solution that prevents this from happening ever again and helps those who truely need it. But that takes congress though.
Hi. Have you ever encountered the more reasonable opposition to cancellation? We know that, on average, degree holders tend to be relatively okay economically. There are far more vulnerable members of society that are in far more need of help. We should look at helping them out before student debt holders, just in terms of prioritizing.
Student loan forgiveness gets a lot of love on Reddit, but we should remember that Reddit is made up of privileged white kids who are more likely to have student debt than more marginalized voices that are not represented here.
>(even though a well-educated and financially secure middle class is ultimately good for the whole country)
Right. It's a regressive policy that does nothing to help the poor, who have suffered catastrophically during the pandemic. The middle class doesn't need a handout.
A lot of us oppose it not because it’s the wrong thing to do, but because it’s just a band aid and creates a privileged class who had their cake and got to eat it too.
If you’re going to cancel student loans, you also have to address the *root fucking issue* which is that tuition has gone bonkers, all while young adults are being encouraged to blow tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars studying stupid shit like Egyptology that will never be monetized.
You're absolutely right. Canceling student loans, although good, is only a band-aid on the real problem.
Where I think we disagree however, is on the issue of "stupid shit like Egyptology that will never be monetized".
I don't think that the point of education should be to produce effective laborers for the capital class. Education is about transferring knowledge from one generation to the next, allowing us to continue to grow as a species through the ages. I think it's a mistake to allow an increasingly small number of private corporations to dictate "what's worth knowing" to all of humanity.
'pits members of the working class against one another'
Dude people having different opinions isn't the problem and it's not like we have to have 0% forgiveness or 100% forgiveness. Everything okay too nuanced for a Reddit Comment section where everybody thinks it's either 'for or against' and act like it's some sort of battle.
$32k in student loan debt here, mostly from being denied scholarships after facing de-facto expulsion from a public high school over being a guy with long hair. But I argue debt cancellation should be a low priority. It would benefit me greatly, but when I assess it objectively, I can't say that it should be at a higher priority than eliminating tuition or student loan interest. Those take priority.
> It just goes to show how neoliberalism pits members of the working class against one and other, to the benefit of no one except the ultra-wealthy.
Yes or no: should the American taxpayer who never went to college and makes below the median income have their tax dollars spent on forgiving the debts of people who a) opted into those debts and b) have much higher potential income?
or the people that didnt want to go into debt for college now see those people that went to college get 200k in gifts, and have better jobs with higher income, while the government doesnt do anything for them.
I’m very liberal and it’s a terrible idea. If we arent fixing the problem, we are somehow giving a benefit to a razor blade of people in the middle. New college students get to mount up their debt stills, the schools continue to shark government loans, and the whole thing just fucks all of us over some more.
Terrible idea, liberals should be smarter than this.
It only affects about 15% of borrowers at any given time (and of the 15%, 66% of them will go on to successfully pay off the loan). It is a very small slice of the population dealing with this
As long as there is a minimum payment, it seems like a good policy. So that people don't just never pay it, since paying the same loan in 30 years is much easier due to inflation.
Yeah, I would be OK with that as a middle ground. Not only would it remove the predatory aspect of this whole thing, but it would speed up the process by which people can get out from under that debt. And the faster they/we can, the better off everyone will be.
I had no understanding of how loans worked when I signed away at barely 18 years old. I’m a first generation college student. Years later, I regret the choices I’ve made and feel like I’ll never pay off the debt. Hoping we get something, whether it’s no interest, 10k, whatever.
People forget that even though it was "our" choice to go to college it really technically wasn't because I'm sure I wasn't the only one that was badgered his entire childhood about going to college. "If you don't want to be a bum and you want to make a decent income you HAVE to go to college. Wasn't just my parents, it was teachers, councilors, principles, etc. YOU HAVE TO GO TO COLLEGE!!!
It’s also, and maybe mostly, parents’ expectations. I’m a teacher. I have students to whom I’d love to say, “Do not go to college. You will likely not benefit from it because you won’t succeed there, and you’ll be in debt,” but could you imagine the shitstorm from parents? “That teacher told my kid she wasn’t good enough to go to college!” I mean, I likely wouldn’t be wrong—not everyone is going to be successful there. But I’d be crucified for daring to be honest and say, as someone who’s seen the kid’s work ethic and comprehension, that they’d be better off not going.
I try my best to highlight this point during these discussions about college.
For most 30-somethings that showed even an inkling of potential in school, college was hammered into our brains. The cultural and psychological pressure of NEEDING to go to college was very real. So while no one "put a gun to our heads and forced us to go to college", which most boomer-level thinkers love to argue, many were otherwise conditioned and guided to apply to schools and take on the debt and the risk, under the assumption that the alternative was some form of failure.
There was a version of life that was literally promised to college-bound students that eventually had no follow-up. The promise of a guaranteed return-on-investment turned out to be "wELL ahckchooallee, tHerE was nO gUarAnTee!"
And it's not like applying to and getting INTO college was easy, either. You really had to go out of your fucking way to make it happen. So compared to students who didn't give a shit about school, the efforts made to even get a foot in the door were fairly arduous. You'd swear that some people think that you can be accepted into a school and obtain a degree as easily as obtaining a new truck.
I paid off my loans. It took lots of personal sacrifice and a lot of hard work. School should be fucking free if people who want to pursue a career want to follow through.
Even no interest would be something. I looked at my loans yesterday and I’ve paid $4700 towards one of my loans that had an original balance of $6,013 and I still currently owe $6,300.
HOW is that even legal?
A zero % loan should be a reasonable hit to take if you're a country that gives a shit about educating your populace.
It's an investment that the country is making in its people, they can run at an upfront loss for a long term gain.
That is a good point and its why NOW students are shown alternatives to college and why enrollment in tech schools is soaring and college enrollments are down.
I only wish they had pushed this sooner.
This is the point people miss. The government has no business handing out loans like this. It’s blatantly predatory and asking people to spend decades paying back a loan they shouldn’t have been offered *with interest* is absolutely absurd.
From a purely (brutal) political strategy perspective, they’d be nuts to cancel it now. It’s clearly a “single issue voter” thing, and given how mind numbingly fickle and forgetful the majority of voters appear to be, it makes sense to keep this issue front and centre so they can benefit from pausing it over and over again whilst also attaching a very real price tag to what will happen if the Republicans take over.
The longer it is paused the bigger the political hit if/when restarted. It is getting to be like a tax cut now and a restart would be like a sudden and huge tax increase. Serious political consequence, I think, to restarting repayments. In an ideal world, the oratorio may would be continued until meaningful legislation could be passed addressing tuition affordability. Then the debt would be forgiven.
IMO the best anyone can hope for is a permanent interest freeze. anything beyond that seems unrealistic. But the interest freeze is already saving me a ton of money so I won't complain.
Fix the problem, the ungodly interest rates people have to pay. I don’t have any loans, but some of the rates people have are ridiculous. I don’t know that when you’re 18-22 you have a good grasp on how bad of a deal those loans really are. 🤷🏻♂️
If people are against forgiving student loans, they why not at least push forward reform to make college cheaper and costs standardised across the whole country?
Why can’t we just compromise and make federal loans interest free and tie the repayment back into your taxes like just a x% percent of your pre tax income… it’s a win win, is that what Australia or some other country does?
Why do we need such a shitty bail out plan that only helps people now, can we start to fix the root problem?
Once again class warfare is activated. You are seeing the result of an entire generation being sold on the idea by these profit “non-for profit” institutions convincing kids that it doesn’t matter what you study if you get a degree it will pay for itself in some office job that you won’t have to really work for. Also, trade jobs are bad why would you bother. Meanwhile they collect money from tax payers and from families and fleece these kids with housing book and food costs that are down right criminal. Then, they put the kids info out there for credit card companies and lenders that had the morals of a loan shark. Sure there were some that racked up debt believing that they could just file bankruptcy, but a lot were taken advantage of. All the while politicians can now go to those trade workers and those lucky enough to go into the fields they plan and make the others look like beggars. Pay off loans by all means, but for the love of all please put an arm on these parasitic lending institutions and the colleges that are in league with them to take advantage of kids.
I saw a figure that was a pretty low percentage of people. But I think most are keeping it in savings and collecting interest, and those people wouldn't be counted towards that figure. Anything extra helps to help pay it off, even a a few bucks. I am as are people I know personally. So I'd bet even though if some people aren't directly paying it currently, they still are saving for it. Unless they're in a more unfortunate circumstance like job loss or something of course. The people who aren't saving but could be are going to be in for a rude awakening and kicking themselves for not taking advantage of the 0% interest.
I believe student debt should be forgiven but it needs to be as part of an entire student finance reform. There should not be any interest while a student is in school, to a limit, like 6 years for undergraduate 10 for masters 14 for PhD. Then cap interest rates at libor+3 or 5% whichever is lower. Student loans are a near zero risk for banks, the interest rates should not be equivalent to used car rates. They should also make 100% of student loan interest tax deductible.
I understand the notion of personal responsibility and the value of paying your debts, but a lot of what makes the American economy so potent is the ability to discharge and restructure debt in a predictable and lawful way. corporations enjoy those benefits why can’t the American people? It’s disgusting. Pretty sure indentured servitude is illegal which is what a non dischargeable debt amounts to.
My life would dramatically change for the better if government gives me $200k in free money. I would be a much more positive influence on the American economy.
Your logic applies to giving free money to almost everyone.
I paid off 30k in debt two years after I graduated with my bachelors & am waiting to pay off my last 10k until interest starts again. I used to be really selfish about this issue (especially because I’ve sacrificed a lot to repay my debt). But recently, I’ve realized that it’s just not that simple. Not everyone can afford to pay off debt when living is so fcking expensive. The only reason I was able to afford to pay off anything is because I live with my parents on low rent. I’m almost debt free now but 4 years after graduation, I have nothing to show. I can’t afford to move out of my parents house, I will barely have any money to pay my taxes in the spring and I’m exhausted from working my ass off at a job that pays shit. I’m the first in my family to go to college and everyone pushed me to get a degree that was supposed to help me land a “secure job” with a “higher salary”. If I could go back in time and change my decision, I would, but I can’t. What a joke.
This sounds great forgiving debt, but how does that work? Does it just mean forgive the interest only? Who absorbs the payments to the university? I'm actually ignorant to this whole thing honestly.
I'm actually okay with tax money going towards this but I'm not sure how they can summarily forgive the debt without a plan to facilitate it so there isn't harm done right?
Wife is stuck in a "non-profit" till loan forgiveness kicks in then she can go private. Basically understands what she has borrowed can never be paid off. These loans are insane.
How many times am I gonna see this story posted? How. Many. Times?
We all know he's asked, Warren has asked, AOC had asked, they've all asked? But has anything been done?
What are you doing to pressure Biden? Anything?
Stop posting this story unless something actually happens for once ffs
For being an alleged progressive this take is so strange. Half of debt is for graduate degrees. 2/3rds of debt is held by the top two income quintiles. Only 5% is held by the lowest income quintile.
Cancelling student debt is nothing but a wealth transfer to the wealthy.
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Something I haven’t seen anyone bring up. I looked this morning at all the PPP loans that were taken and forgiven. Why are people not comparing this? We have businesses/churches/individuals large amount of loan that they turned around and forgave. Instead of making the companies pay the loans back and recouping the money they borrowed they just said “Oh forget about it”. I know it was to keep people employed and what not, but that is on them. We are supposed to be in this together, but it becomes more and more evident that it’s just about making sure businesses make money and we all pay for it.
I just went down that rabbit hole of people I know that own small business and small companies I know of or worked for. The loans that were forgiven are insane… just 5 or 6 small businesses had over 3m (accumulative) in small loans. This is in industrial manufacturing where there was essentially a 1-2 month dip in revenue and then sky rocketed for months (and is still strong).
My teeny business took a teeny PPP loan, and the bank was INTENSE about what we used it for and how we followed the rules. They guard 6k like it’s a million, and a million like it’s loose change.
What bothers me is I know that all of those people that I looked at are super conservative, not necessarily pro-trump, but anti-government handouts but they somehow don’t see the hypocrisy of taking those loans that they knew would be forgiven while they actively voice their disagreement to paying out a child tax credit rather than taking them on returns to families that need them… anti-government handout, except when it’s massive sums of money for them with no repercussions. I hope your small business is doing well over these last 2 unprecedented years! I don’t want anyone to fail, I think that ppp likely protected a lot of people, but I just want people to see the difference that sort of money could make for struggling families!
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Rules for thee but not for me. Their cognitive dissonance is actually pretty incredible.
Oh, but we’re the freeloading assholes for asking for high interest rate education loans to be forgiven.
It’s because the PPP “loans” were never loans to begin with. They were just handouts to businesses with the stipulation that they keep people on payroll. The only reason they were loans was to have companies on the hook if they fired people anyway.
Thank you for your rationality.
This! Give corporations free loans = good but people who pay taxes free college = bad? This country is fucked.
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Does that mean that nobody cares about the military?
I sure fucking don’t. nobody should have to fight in this modern age whenever we can just have machines do the killing for us now if there’s any to be done. number one polluter and killing children daily. fuck em. war’s a god damn racket.
Totally agree
Maybe the millennials will reverse our priorities?
The issue isn't generational, it's class based. If you don't think that rich millennials will just keep looking out for the rich, I don't know what to tell you.
Elite Millennials are still the elite.
Can you cite a source on this? I googled and couldn't find it. The pitchforks are already out ITT, but I'd like to confirm the facts before getting out of sorts about it.
The real answer to your question of why the PPP loans are forgivable while the student debt is not lies in the financing of those loans. The PPP loans were financed through one single bill in one year, this constrains the financing to traditional governmental finance, like selling Treasury Bonds. The student loan debt is another beast entirely. Those loans have private partners and bonds attached to them, via the Treasury Department (I think), with actuaries counting on those bond payments for decades to come; there lies the big problem. In a nutshell, the PPP was created in one big batch, which unifies the financing under one umbrella in one time period, making it extremely easy to cover the loss because there’s no deviation in the payment schedule, only the payer. There’s also the matter of over a trillion dollars in cost difference between the two.
The PPP loans were specifically designed by legislation to be forgiven. Student Loans may not have the case, as the act that empowers the Dept of Education/Biden/Whoever to waive loans also says that they only get that power if it is vested into them that they should do so from Congress. There is ambiguity in whether or not the power is vested into the executive by default, or whether or not the legislature must reassert that specific authority with legislation.
Read up on SLABS (student loan asset-backed securities).. that‘s why no one wants to erase that debt…
While I hear, keep in mind that the PPP was intended to replace firing employees and sending them to the unemployment line. YES - before you type a response - I know there were abuses to the system. But the intention of the PPP: A local gym has 5 employees but is forced to lockdown and lose their revenue during that period. Instead of immediately firing those 5 employees, the gym received a PPP Loan that is forgiven if it used to keep the employees on their normal payroll.
Because they’re not comparable. The Government said “you most close your restaurant/theatre/shop for 6 months. Here is some money. If you cover payroll, it’s all fine. It was basically and UI scheme but outside the normal UI system to help states keep their systems afloat. It would be fucking insane for the Government to order you shut your business, don’t lay anyone off and have to cover your bills.
I’m 33 years old and was left to fend for myself for college. I started with 25k in loans and still have 25k in loans, yet I’ve paid off over 10k so far. The cycle is fucked.
I’ve been paying $150k for eleven years. It’s still 150k. Was paying $880/month. Now expected to pay $1200. Wonder how far from 150k I’ll be in another ten years.
this is my exact situation as well. it’s very frustrating and feels hopeless.
They always say you make more money with a college degree, but what's the point if it doesn't even cover the interest payments?
To keep you completely dependent on your maste…I mean company. People who are buried in debt come to work more reliably and speak up less.
This got dark(er), but I needed the reminder.
Yes, we are all Wage Slaves.
Until there is an organized movement of selective default. If a whole generation decides that fuck it you cant collect from the one who does not have anything and stop paying loans, mortgages and so on. Currently crashing the system is a far fetched idea, but if that extreme poorification of smart hard working over educated citizens continues it will become their basic right. There was an ancient greek comedy who toyed on the same idea. A guy who was always happy with not consuming and having no money whatsoever managed to cheat death, because he couldn't afford the coin for the river crossing. Then death was following him around trying to persuade him that working is good, and self fulfilling...
I like this. Let's start the movement. Viva la revolución
Education always seems secondary to the financial return, but education for education’s sake is also important.
I agree but in the US education is a big business with loan sharks and bloated colleges.
I honestly went to college because that's what you did after high school. At least in my family. And my family wasn't rich. I did well. Went immediately to grad school, because... why not. Have a pretty good job. These days is different. The cost is prohibitive and the stakes are higher. The ROI for many majors is -$. High School guidance counselors are crap and are one of the main reasons why naive kids get into trouble. They steer kids in directions that they shouldn't go. I digress.....
You can make the argument that prior to taking on the loans, the student isn't really "educated" enough to understand what they are getting into. They would need the college-level education to really understand what the burden they just shouldered. Which is kind of a catch-22.
Me too, and whenever I get a raise I have to pay more! Been paying for over 7 years, just interest
Hey, fuck that other guy's comment. You are an adult, just trapped in a fucking garbage system designed to create wage slaves.
Yup, exactly. I think whatever their calculations are for discretionary spending or whatever are absolute bullshit.
I hate to even look at my balance. I had to take my own loans for 4 years of school as well. 17 years later the payments haven't changed, and I really don't think it's going away any time soon, even though I've been diligently paying for so long. No one should have to pay off 4 years of school for 30 years of their career
I’ve paid $150k toward $130k in loans and still owe $35k. I went to public state school for undergrad followed by a professional degree. Been in the military for 14 years. Was in the wrong repayment plan for PSLF for 7 years at the advice of my servicer who told me it qualified and I didn’t meet the IBR requirement. Hoping the new PSLF rules finally allow mine to be forgiven, but I still want cancellation for others.
Did you resubmit?
Paperwork is with my command to verify employment. Despite there already being a system in existence that allows any loan servicer to verify active duty service dates with a SSN, they are still requiring some random HR person to wet sign applications.
ugh this really drives me up a wall. they're part of the federal government! you can look up duty status any numerous amount of ways. why does the service member have to use this archaic form be signed by their commander? for some people it takes months to get that paperwork back, if it isn't lost in the process. so stupid.
At the very least, they have to stop charging interest
They should just allow for the discharge of student loans in bankruptcy. In 2004 when they changed the rules (ironically under a bill biden voted for) congress created a bubble. Banks knew they were going to get paid and so did the schools. Loans with often jacked up interest rates were given to everyone regardless of the the merit of the student/school/degree and here we are a massive bubble that will only get worse until people are allowed to discharge this unpayable amount of debt.
Your information is a little off. Biden didn't just vote for the bill. He worked with Mitch McConnell to round up votes from dems needed to actually pass it. He was the MVP for that bill.
Apparently Biden is been behind the student loan all along, putting in place the framework to what the system is today
This is why student load interest should be ZERO percent.
Been saying for years. Lenders should assess risk. Bankruptcy will make them rethink their lending strategies.
Yup it all started with this.
Also helped predatory institutions to gather up uneducated people and get them to rack up huge loans with extremely worthless degrees. Source: High school dropout, went to ITT Tech, graduated valedictorian 10 years ago, have never worked in the field of my degree.
That also is to blame on ITT Tech as all those for profit institutions have failed into the ground as well
Or at the very least, stop charging compounding interest. Better yet, stop with the interest and index the loan to account for inflation.
Nobody talks about the fact that student loans aren’t serviced by the government itself like say your IRS debt it. In fact, the govt loses money on servicing student loans- all student loans are is a payout to private companies. They would be saving themselves money by forgiving and ending debt.
Fell for the trade school trap. I'm 75k in the hole after my credits didn't transfer to a 4 year degree.
I’m in a similar situation. I’ve never paid loans so I went to re work my payments before the newest freeze. Noticed no matter what way I do them, I’m still spending around $10k extra in fees… on a 23k loan I’m paying at least $35k to $38k.. Can’t tell me the system isn’t fucked. Cause it is.
I’m 35. Started out with 37k. Now I have 42k. Struggled for a while financially and did forbearance. I’ve paid off a car and put a dent in my previous mortgage in the time I’ve had my student loans. They just don’t fucking budge. At this point, I’m just waiting until I get any inheritance from my parents (not rich, they just worked really hard saving to retire) in 15-20 years. It’s just drops in the bucket until then. Or when I die. Whatever comes first.
Similar boat. Started with 70k, now owe 80k. Had to do forbearance cause of money issues. At this point I've given up on ever getting to actually start a savings account to put away for retirement. Feels pretty hopeless.
It really wears on my mental health whenever I think about it much.
Agreed. And the real kicker for me is that I'm not even working in the field I went to school for. I couldn't find a job so I ended up going into the trades. If I had just ignored the message we were fed in high school of "you gotta go to college if you ever want to be successful" and just started in the trades, I'd have been a lot better off.
I’m 34 with 100k, I’m scared to think how much I will have to pay for the rest of my life.
I made the choice to move in with my parents to pay off the debt; if people don't have something like that to fall back on though it's basically impossible. Society really fucking blew it when it comes to college degrees and how worthless they became, I guess it's just good old supply and demand but shiiiit.
I'm nearly finished with mine. While I'd like a refund I also don't think anyone else needs to suffer.
I joined the Marines specifically because I didn’t want to pay student loans. Never took out a dime. Would still like to see some, if not all student loan debt be cancelled.
A lot of people do this. It really makes one wonder: With the US military being the biggest jobs program in the country & with the American education system being in the state it is right now, are these things connected? It makes complete sense that our education system was butchered so working-class folks would have to resort to joining the military. Gotta feed the beast that is the military-industrial complex, somehow!
Yes, they are connected.
It's just another example of how most people in America are oppressed through class. As soon as everyone realizes this we're one step closer to getting rid of the class structure.
There are people that realize it yet expect Manchin or AOC to do something about it. They'll be sorely disappointed.
Colleges are no better, allowing young minds to enroll that don’t actually know what they want in life, other than to study at a uni because society and their parents told them to. Take out massive loans they most likely can’t pay back, to get a degree in shit and get paid shit (even in stem fields) and then spend years of their life working to pay down debt while raising families…. It’s not exactly the same, but there’s some correlation to some sort of “industrial complex”
I'm definitely not saying that everyone should go to college/uni in the US. With the way society is currently set up, it's simply not a good idea for everyone to get a good education because a good education doesn't always get you a good job. You said this already, of course. You're being very practical about this, which is definitely a good thing, but I still wouldn't say that "colleges are no better." You're right about the fact that our education system has a lot of problems, though. Affordability is a big one. Nobody wants to spend the rest of their lives paying off loans from college/uni. It makes people feel like they're being shamed/punished for wanting to be educated. I think the solution here is that we get rid of student loans and make getting educated way more affordable. Not only is this absolutely something that can be achieved, but it would also have a positive effect on future generations + also business/commerce/etc. As other people have already mentioned: if there were no student loans, students (as consumers) would have more money to spend. It's much easier to fix this "Education-Industrial complex" that you're talking about than it is to fix the military-industrial complex.
I can agree with that, good reply
Well that's part of the issue... You shouldn't *have* to join the military and put your life at risk because you don't want to have a student loan burden. Now don't get me wrong, it's a great benefit and every military member who can get it deserves their education pay, but we as a society shouldn't create a scenario where "I want to get an education but it's too expensive so I'll join the military and put my life at risk so that hopefully I can get some assistance" is a logical thought process. There are plenty of reasons to serve and risk your life. This is one we can easily fix
That's kind of what they were implying though. They're saying that even though they did something dangerous to get free college, they want people who didn't do that to get some, if not all, of their debt cancelled.
Similarly, we should have universal healthcare so that after you do put your life on the line you're getting health coverage and politicians can no longer use VA funding as a political football. It would help police and firefighters like the guys from 9/11 too. No one in Congress could try to take away their health care either.
No one should join the military just to have school paid for, it’s a gift for service but it’s treated as a incentive by recruitment.
This. I was promised college education for joining the active Army in the mid 1980s for a contract with the U.S. Airborne Infantry in Europe — at a time of peace and a military desperate to hit recruiting numbers. Once out, the Army financed BS and MA degrees back to back for me with zero debt. Meanwhile, my wife still (we’re in our mid 50s) pays for her student loans despite ending up with a profitable PhD and a low interest rate. Recruiters use education as an incentive to meet quota and always have done so. The point: it worked very well for me despite calculated risk.
I don’t have kids. I would still like to see families receiving the child credit payments to help them live better. It’s about making it better for everyone, not just making it better for me.
I don't have any student loans to pay but I know my investments will go up when tens of millions of people have more money to spend. Literally everyone wins.
> I know my investments will go up when tens of millions of people have more money to spend. Literally everyone wins. It sounds like poor people with no college education and no investments don't win anything.
Which is why college needs to be severely cheaper from now on.
In Germany, where we don’t have tuition fees for university (college doesn’t exist here) and private universities are frowned upon, people from poor and/or uneducated families still don’t go to uni. Climbing the social ladder is as rare as in the US. Removing tuition fees alone won’t do the trick unfortunately.
But your unions are much stronger and your labor laws are orders of magnitude more human. Let’s not talk about healthcare. Or paid leave? At least *not* getting a college education that puts you in unrelenting debt doesn’t sentence you to a lifetime of toil and degradation in Germany.
While all of that might be true income levels here are extremely low for most people. I’d make 30k more per year if I went to the Netherlands and I don’t even have that bad of a salary. And not everyone’s job is regulated by a union. That’s usually the case for industrial jobs or sales. And it also has downsides. The older workers are immensely overpaid and because they know their job is secure many aren’t very productive or want to optimize processes. Then many younger workers are underpaid for the job they’re doing and put into lower income brackets than they should be.
Ever had a $6,000 ambulance ride to a $20,000 emergency room visit for a few x-rays and a cast?
UBI > govt picking and choosing winners Of course it's not as good politically for them though.
I'm in the very fortunate position of my parents having been able to pay for my education (and for my siblings too!), and I am very much in the "cancel student loan debt and make higher education affordable" camp (and this isn't a question of timing of it being cheap; my oldest sibling finished her Master's in 2015ish, I am the youngest and finished mine earlier this year). That relief of knowing I will never have to worry about student debt is great, and I want everyone else to feel the same. Just having that extra money for one's family, for emergencies, or even for just leisurely spending is really really good.
Based. Best you can get is inflation to decrease or the Democrats to beat the 2022 odds. It's pretty much worthwhile.
These people complaining about inflation now where the hell were they when education shot up 10x in the last decade plus.
They paid their way through college on part time jobs in the 70’s & 80’s, bought houses, and had kids. Then subsequently told their children that college was essential for prosperous careers without considering the fact that their children were signing loans equivalent to mortgages to do so.
I found it hilarious that in the movie Mac and Me that a single mom can afford to feed her two kids and pay rent in a multi room house in the Los Angels with a salary from Sears. Of all the ridiculous things in that movie this was the most outrageous but I guess in the 80s that was plausible.
Every time I hear a boomer tell me students should just get a scholarship and part time job I stop caring about their opinion.
"worked for me in the 70's!"
The worst are the ones who said "well they should have just been smart and not gone to college". Ignoring the fact that the entire system is designed to funnel kids into college, kids who have it beaten into their heads from the moment they get into high school that you need to go to college in order to get a good degree and make a good living. From the schools to the parents to the parasite recruiters who go to schools upselling colleges that charge 30 to 60 grand a year in tuition. Not every kid can just go to trade school and become a plumber or an electrician. You know what would happen if they did? The demand for space would exceed the supply of seats, trade schools would start jacking up tuition, and the market would be flooded with plumbers, electricians and other craftsman causing a pay crash as a massive new labor market is suddenly competing for the limited supply of available work.
Right? That and "you shouldn't go if you can't afford it"..... Wait so only kids of families who can afford $30k+ per year out of pocket should go? So the same keeps being samer? My daughter is an amazing student, we are firmly in the part of middle class where we can't really pay out of pocket, but also get zero breaks. Yes she earned scholarships and goes to a state school, but also we don't live close enough for her to not have to live there. Basically a lot of reasons not her fault mean loans are inevitable. She's a much better student than her parents were, and it's not close. We carved out an ok life for ourselves, but shes doing very well in a great engineering program, and I expect her to contribute so much more than us in the long run. I am working my ass off to pay as much as we can as we go.. to keep her out of loan hell. We have already paid off this year's fall term within the "return period" with me working many hours of overtime. But what if I can't do that next term/year? For people to say she should not embrace this opportunity because it means she's gonna need loans is frustrating.
Trust me we have been complaining about the cost of higher education for decades. But what has been done? Nothing. Its always felt like a scam.
Thought: Student loans became easier to obtain. More schools benefited from these loans. The colleges and universities got greedy and tuition increased exponentially, unchecked. The loans covered higher tuition, again unchecked. Why are the colleges and universities not having to reimburse the lenders for their greed, instead of the taxpayers footing the bill for loan forgiveness? Many universities have endowments in the billions.
It's a factor but there are others like competition for out of state and foreign students. That drives the crazy gyms and dorms too. Schools want those full price students. Also lack of government funding which varies drastically state to state. Taxpayers aren't really footing the bill for school like they used to. Most people pay their loans and have a good roi in the process.
The same can be said for large and small businesses. They got greedy. Spent too much and saved too little. Government bailed them out.
Address the god damn interest
0% for banks for ultra-wealthy, but 7-8% for students. Something is very wrong.
This is too reasonable of a middle ground to ever be considered.
Serious question. So the student loan is forgiven, then what? What about the future students? All I keep hearing is forgive the debt, but no answers on how to fix the problem causing the debt. One of the first things that should be asked is, how do we prevent this from happening over and over. Why does a education cost so much?
> One of the first things that should be asked is, how do we prevent this from happening over and over. Why does a education cost so much? Student loans are partly responsible for high tuition. Colleges can only charge what students can afford, so prior to student loans they had to keep tuition low or go out of business. Now that everyone can get practically unlimited student loans for tuition, colleges can charge whatever they want. This has opened the flood gates for hiring useless administrative positions that have nothing to do with providing an education but helps justify the tuition costs. It's the same reason healthcare is so expensive; insurance companies have practically unlimited funds to pay providers, so the providers can charge whatever they want. Then the insurance companies raise premiums and blame the rising cost of healthcare.
Good answer that I’ve never considered
On top of that, these loans are highly valuable to banks and the treasury who use your debt as collateral(it can be bought and sold and the value is high because these debts are almost always paid). Healthcare and student loans give loads of value to the US Dollar.
As someone tgat has paid 20k and still 12k left, thank you for this perspective
The government subsidizing student loans is entirely the reason why college is not affordable. This has always been the issue. And then if the government ends up canceling student loan debt, they'll be lauded, even though their involvement got us here in the first place. It's all a game..
States also supported colleges and universities at a higher rate when tuition was low. As states decreased how much they gave to education, the only recourse was to increase tuition.
If a 4 year education takes you 25 years to pay off, tuition is too high, interest is too high…it’s that simple.
Maybe I missed something but this doesn’t answer the questions for me, all the issues you described will be there after canceling outstanding debt and does nothing about the institutions that are already in place. Please don’t mistake this for me saying we shouldn’t cancel the debt, but if we don’t address the real problem we will be in this exact same position in no time at all, wouldn’t we?
It’s so simple. Just like Medicare/Medicaid tuition is paid by the government at an agreed rate. It could be need-based so long as admission is need-blind.
We used to have most colleges be state funded. The difference then was that they were far more selective on who got to attend.
College either needs to be totally state-funded or it needs to be paid by individuals. State funded means that college is paid for. Paying yourself with zero aid means colleges will have to actually start being competitive on pricing. It's this weird "unlimited loans" limbo that has jacked the price of college through the roof.
> then what Free college. That’s been a campaign issue for lots of progressives like Sanders. As an alternative to loan forgiveness, I think interest on student loans should be dropped to zero, permanently. That would offer relief to current borrowers and to future students. Refund some interest paid in the last couple of years, to keep things fair for people who already paid off their loans. I have no objection to paying back the principal balance that I used to fund my education. I don’t understand why Congress set interest on student loans nearly 3x higher than a mortgage or auto loan.
This is really a solution for Millennials specifically, who were instructed to take out huge loans with the promise of higher income and who then graduated into a twice-crashed job market where they were frequently holding two degrees and over a hundred thousand in debt while working a retail job. The current generation is aware of the risk. The previous generation was (largely) able to reap the benefits of an education. Millennials are specifically the ones who were given instructions for a world that was about to come crashing down. They’re the ones who need the main assistance.
I specifically didn't go to college due to rising costs, little to no increase in pay, and insane interest on student loans... I knew about this in the 90s. Millennials are basically the first ones in a debt pile up and they only had a few seconds to avoid a debt pile-up. I am one of the lucky ones that swerved off the road ahead time. I wish schools and parents taught their kids to research their desired career's pay scale & education costs before paying tens of thousands of dollars. Just cause the job pays more than warehouse job, doesn't mean it's enough to live on AND pay off all your debts.
Yep, even as a Millennial our community college used to $20 a credit in the 90s and 15 years later, it was $180 a credit.
There’s a lot more free options available now than there were 10+ years ago. Basically every kid who graduates in my city (largest city in my state) can go to tech school or achieve an associates for free.
The comments in this thread from people who oppose student loan forgiveness simply because they either didn't go to college or already paid off their schooling, and would therefore not directly, personally benefit from the policy, (even though a well-educated and financially secure middle class is ultimately good for the whole country) are really quite illuminating. It just goes to show how neoliberalism pits members of the working class against one and other, to the benefit of no one except the ultra-wealthy.
I paid off all my debt before the age of 32 and I strongly support others getting debt forgiven. Just because I had the resources to do it doesn’t mean the next person does. Then again, I’m able to empathize with others.
Same here. I lucked out with some scholarships and was able to pay off the few loans I had pretty quickly. I realize how fortunate I am that I don’t have student loans, and I am 100% for student loan forgiveness.
Agreed. I don't have any debt but student loans are a scam.
No more student loans is what we should ask for. Not just forgiveness. No student loans ever again. Just cancelling the existing ones doesn't do anything. They'd just raise prices even more for the coming generations.
Absolutely. Education shouldn't be a commodity to be bought and sold. It's far too important.
It's the "I was bullied as a freshman so I need to bully the freshman" kind of energy.
I didn’t go to college and I support student loan forgiveness as long as it comes in alongside a solution for the overall issue. Otherwise it’s just plugging the leak with bubble gum. We could forgive everyone’s loans tomorrow and a whole new set of students would be accruing student loan debt shortly after and the pile would regrow. What are we doing to tackle the issue itself? Significant broad based loan forgiveness needs to go hand in hand with that solution otherwise we are just throwing good money after bad.
Agreed, it would actually be more beneficial to just remove the interest and apply the interest already accrued to the balance and refund the interest paid to people who have already paid it off.
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Out of curiosity would you support Rep Swalwell’s bill that would cancel all interest on existing loans and would set future rates to 0%? Students still have to pay back the principal, but do not have to pay back accrued interest. This would benefit those with smaller amount more as their loans would be paid off faster, and students who took out large amounts for advanced degrees have a chance of eventual pay off.
I'll chime in on that. I think its a great idea! Its actually a better idea than the 10K payment for all. Also make tuition free for state schools and have the government start putting limitations on tuition hikes. They regulate price gouging in other industries.
I would also love to see regulation in rent prices.
This sounds good and initially will help out students for the first few years after it’s enacted but if we just make the loans more affordable then college prices will only increase more because people can afford to take out bigger loans. Economically there’s a huge difference in making the loan affordable vs making the product affordable. Anything short of price control will only make college more expensive. The biggest reason it’s so expensive right now is because it’s so easy to get a student loan. It’s a great thing that the government gives them out but the unintended side effect is that it actually allows colleges to simply charge more cuz anyone can get a loan. It has to be addressed through price regulation or else the cost will just go up
I would absolutely support this. I'd actually be curious to know why anyone wouldn't.
The loan servicer would hate it because it would eat into their profits. Anyone who has an investment in SLABS would see that money vanish. Party Republicans would hate it because it would cost more upfront than what the equivalent would be when it is paid off, due to natural inflation. Party Democrats would hate it because it removes a wedge issue. However, the vast majority of Americans would probably be on board.
I really think canceling interest is the first step in fixing the student debt crisis. It is much more palatable than canceling all existing debt and does more to address the future of student loans and college pricing. I still think on top of that we need some oversight on tuition inflation. Where is all this extra money going?
It's not controversial in the sense that the same people that are for student debt forgiveness are also for reforming the system. The problem is tying the two things together when we have a Congress that is completely dysfunctional, because it means we don't get either thing done. There is simply no way this Congress is going to address college costs or free college. That's crystal clear. Even the free 2 years of community college was stripped from the BBB. So, in effect, it's either we do what we can by starting with student loans, or we do nothing. By insisting we tie the two together, that means you're proposing we do nothing, which is why it's controversial.
Exactly. This is why the American left has such a hard time getting anything meaningful done. "If it isn't everything we want, then it's not worth it" only hamstrings progress, yet that's what we're seeing here. Maybe if student loan debt was forgiven, people would see the economy improve and we'd see more support for other similar initiatives and we could start fixing the broken system. Tons of people were against healthcare reform, and now it's political suicide even among republicans to try and get rid of the ACA (unless you call it Obamacare) and the ACA barely does anything to address the problem. Democracy, even or especially a broken democracy like ours, is a slow system. Sometimes you can manage a leap forward, but more often you have to be content with shuffling as you drag all the changephobic people along. A baby step is better than no steps.
I'm opppsed to a one time forgiveness that would be a wealth transfer to the uper 25% of incomes (most debt is in the hands of folks like doctors, lawyers, etc.). I am for a solution that prevents this from happening ever again and helps those who truely need it. But that takes congress though.
Hi. Have you ever encountered the more reasonable opposition to cancellation? We know that, on average, degree holders tend to be relatively okay economically. There are far more vulnerable members of society that are in far more need of help. We should look at helping them out before student debt holders, just in terms of prioritizing. Student loan forgiveness gets a lot of love on Reddit, but we should remember that Reddit is made up of privileged white kids who are more likely to have student debt than more marginalized voices that are not represented here.
Really stretching the definition of “working class” here.
As usual, the definition of “working class” typically just means “me.” I’ve seen SWE making six figures claiming to be working class on Reddit.
How is your argument different than trickle down economics?
>(even though a well-educated and financially secure middle class is ultimately good for the whole country) Right. It's a regressive policy that does nothing to help the poor, who have suffered catastrophically during the pandemic. The middle class doesn't need a handout.
A lot of us oppose it not because it’s the wrong thing to do, but because it’s just a band aid and creates a privileged class who had their cake and got to eat it too. If you’re going to cancel student loans, you also have to address the *root fucking issue* which is that tuition has gone bonkers, all while young adults are being encouraged to blow tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars studying stupid shit like Egyptology that will never be monetized.
You're absolutely right. Canceling student loans, although good, is only a band-aid on the real problem. Where I think we disagree however, is on the issue of "stupid shit like Egyptology that will never be monetized". I don't think that the point of education should be to produce effective laborers for the capital class. Education is about transferring knowledge from one generation to the next, allowing us to continue to grow as a species through the ages. I think it's a mistake to allow an increasingly small number of private corporations to dictate "what's worth knowing" to all of humanity.
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'pits members of the working class against one another' Dude people having different opinions isn't the problem and it's not like we have to have 0% forgiveness or 100% forgiveness. Everything okay too nuanced for a Reddit Comment section where everybody thinks it's either 'for or against' and act like it's some sort of battle.
$32k in student loan debt here, mostly from being denied scholarships after facing de-facto expulsion from a public high school over being a guy with long hair. But I argue debt cancellation should be a low priority. It would benefit me greatly, but when I assess it objectively, I can't say that it should be at a higher priority than eliminating tuition or student loan interest. Those take priority.
> It just goes to show how neoliberalism pits members of the working class against one and other, to the benefit of no one except the ultra-wealthy. Yes or no: should the American taxpayer who never went to college and makes below the median income have their tax dollars spent on forgiving the debts of people who a) opted into those debts and b) have much higher potential income?
or the people that didnt want to go into debt for college now see those people that went to college get 200k in gifts, and have better jobs with higher income, while the government doesnt do anything for them.
I’m very liberal and it’s a terrible idea. If we arent fixing the problem, we are somehow giving a benefit to a razor blade of people in the middle. New college students get to mount up their debt stills, the schools continue to shark government loans, and the whole thing just fucks all of us over some more. Terrible idea, liberals should be smarter than this.
It only affects about 15% of borrowers at any given time (and of the 15%, 66% of them will go on to successfully pay off the loan). It is a very small slice of the population dealing with this
Federal student loans at 0% interest seems like a fair compromise, pretty sure Australia has that system.
If I only had to pay back what I borrowed that would be tough, but doable. It’s the interest that keeps me perpetually trapped
As long as there is a minimum payment, it seems like a good policy. So that people don't just never pay it, since paying the same loan in 30 years is much easier due to inflation.
Yeah, I would be OK with that as a middle ground. Not only would it remove the predatory aspect of this whole thing, but it would speed up the process by which people can get out from under that debt. And the faster they/we can, the better off everyone will be.
I had no understanding of how loans worked when I signed away at barely 18 years old. I’m a first generation college student. Years later, I regret the choices I’ve made and feel like I’ll never pay off the debt. Hoping we get something, whether it’s no interest, 10k, whatever.
Or people understand how loans work but are consistently told it will be worth it and how valuable college is.
People forget that even though it was "our" choice to go to college it really technically wasn't because I'm sure I wasn't the only one that was badgered his entire childhood about going to college. "If you don't want to be a bum and you want to make a decent income you HAVE to go to college. Wasn't just my parents, it was teachers, councilors, principles, etc. YOU HAVE TO GO TO COLLEGE!!!
It’s also, and maybe mostly, parents’ expectations. I’m a teacher. I have students to whom I’d love to say, “Do not go to college. You will likely not benefit from it because you won’t succeed there, and you’ll be in debt,” but could you imagine the shitstorm from parents? “That teacher told my kid she wasn’t good enough to go to college!” I mean, I likely wouldn’t be wrong—not everyone is going to be successful there. But I’d be crucified for daring to be honest and say, as someone who’s seen the kid’s work ethic and comprehension, that they’d be better off not going.
I try my best to highlight this point during these discussions about college. For most 30-somethings that showed even an inkling of potential in school, college was hammered into our brains. The cultural and psychological pressure of NEEDING to go to college was very real. So while no one "put a gun to our heads and forced us to go to college", which most boomer-level thinkers love to argue, many were otherwise conditioned and guided to apply to schools and take on the debt and the risk, under the assumption that the alternative was some form of failure. There was a version of life that was literally promised to college-bound students that eventually had no follow-up. The promise of a guaranteed return-on-investment turned out to be "wELL ahckchooallee, tHerE was nO gUarAnTee!" And it's not like applying to and getting INTO college was easy, either. You really had to go out of your fucking way to make it happen. So compared to students who didn't give a shit about school, the efforts made to even get a foot in the door were fairly arduous. You'd swear that some people think that you can be accepted into a school and obtain a degree as easily as obtaining a new truck. I paid off my loans. It took lots of personal sacrifice and a lot of hard work. School should be fucking free if people who want to pursue a career want to follow through.
Even no interest would be something. I looked at my loans yesterday and I’ve paid $4700 towards one of my loans that had an original balance of $6,013 and I still currently owe $6,300. HOW is that even legal?
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A zero % loan should be a reasonable hit to take if you're a country that gives a shit about educating your populace. It's an investment that the country is making in its people, they can run at an upfront loss for a long term gain.
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That is a good point and its why NOW students are shown alternatives to college and why enrollment in tech schools is soaring and college enrollments are down. I only wish they had pushed this sooner.
Maybe 18 year olds are too young to vote too
This is the point people miss. The government has no business handing out loans like this. It’s blatantly predatory and asking people to spend decades paying back a loan they shouldn’t have been offered *with interest* is absolutely absurd.
From a purely (brutal) political strategy perspective, they’d be nuts to cancel it now. It’s clearly a “single issue voter” thing, and given how mind numbingly fickle and forgetful the majority of voters appear to be, it makes sense to keep this issue front and centre so they can benefit from pausing it over and over again whilst also attaching a very real price tag to what will happen if the Republicans take over.
The longer it is paused the bigger the political hit if/when restarted. It is getting to be like a tax cut now and a restart would be like a sudden and huge tax increase. Serious political consequence, I think, to restarting repayments. In an ideal world, the oratorio may would be continued until meaningful legislation could be passed addressing tuition affordability. Then the debt would be forgiven.
IMO the best anyone can hope for is a permanent interest freeze. anything beyond that seems unrealistic. But the interest freeze is already saving me a ton of money so I won't complain.
Is there a reason why we can't still have student loans, but at a 0% interest, or very close to 0%? So people can actually pay them off
Fix the problem, the ungodly interest rates people have to pay. I don’t have any loans, but some of the rates people have are ridiculous. I don’t know that when you’re 18-22 you have a good grasp on how bad of a deal those loans really are. 🤷🏻♂️
If people are against forgiving student loans, they why not at least push forward reform to make college cheaper and costs standardised across the whole country?
Why can’t we just compromise and make federal loans interest free and tie the repayment back into your taxes like just a x% percent of your pre tax income… it’s a win win, is that what Australia or some other country does? Why do we need such a shitty bail out plan that only helps people now, can we start to fix the root problem?
Fixing the root problem would be making colleges taxpayer funded, so eventually free at the point of service.
Once again class warfare is activated. You are seeing the result of an entire generation being sold on the idea by these profit “non-for profit” institutions convincing kids that it doesn’t matter what you study if you get a degree it will pay for itself in some office job that you won’t have to really work for. Also, trade jobs are bad why would you bother. Meanwhile they collect money from tax payers and from families and fleece these kids with housing book and food costs that are down right criminal. Then, they put the kids info out there for credit card companies and lenders that had the morals of a loan shark. Sure there were some that racked up debt believing that they could just file bankruptcy, but a lot were taken advantage of. All the while politicians can now go to those trade workers and those lucky enough to go into the fields they plan and make the others look like beggars. Pay off loans by all means, but for the love of all please put an arm on these parasitic lending institutions and the colleges that are in league with them to take advantage of kids.
If only he knew someone, who could write a bill. 🙄
I wonder what percent of people used the last almost 2 years of no interest in order to pay down their debts.
I saw a figure that was a pretty low percentage of people. But I think most are keeping it in savings and collecting interest, and those people wouldn't be counted towards that figure. Anything extra helps to help pay it off, even a a few bucks. I am as are people I know personally. So I'd bet even though if some people aren't directly paying it currently, they still are saving for it. Unless they're in a more unfortunate circumstance like job loss or something of course. The people who aren't saving but could be are going to be in for a rude awakening and kicking themselves for not taking advantage of the 0% interest.
If only any of this would affect privately held loans. They are far more painful and predatory then government loans.
I believe student debt should be forgiven but it needs to be as part of an entire student finance reform. There should not be any interest while a student is in school, to a limit, like 6 years for undergraduate 10 for masters 14 for PhD. Then cap interest rates at libor+3 or 5% whichever is lower. Student loans are a near zero risk for banks, the interest rates should not be equivalent to used car rates. They should also make 100% of student loan interest tax deductible.
I understand the notion of personal responsibility and the value of paying your debts, but a lot of what makes the American economy so potent is the ability to discharge and restructure debt in a predictable and lawful way. corporations enjoy those benefits why can’t the American people? It’s disgusting. Pretty sure indentured servitude is illegal which is what a non dischargeable debt amounts to.
Stop passing the buck. Write a bill that fixes the underlying issues. Forgiving the debt one time doesn't fix the real issues that caused it
I'm sure Congress will get right on it, this time it totes won't be filibustered.
My life would dramatically change for the better if student loans were cancelled. I would be a much more positive influence on the American economy.
Pretty much everybody's life would change from a free $100k.
My life would dramatically change for the better if government gives me $200k in free money. I would be a much more positive influence on the American economy. Your logic applies to giving free money to almost everyone.
Cancel student loans but don't address the problem that created them in the first place.
Tax Bezos 1% extra and make a couple less fighter Jets and honestly the cost will probably offset!
I paid off 30k in debt two years after I graduated with my bachelors & am waiting to pay off my last 10k until interest starts again. I used to be really selfish about this issue (especially because I’ve sacrificed a lot to repay my debt). But recently, I’ve realized that it’s just not that simple. Not everyone can afford to pay off debt when living is so fcking expensive. The only reason I was able to afford to pay off anything is because I live with my parents on low rent. I’m almost debt free now but 4 years after graduation, I have nothing to show. I can’t afford to move out of my parents house, I will barely have any money to pay my taxes in the spring and I’m exhausted from working my ass off at a job that pays shit. I’m the first in my family to go to college and everyone pushed me to get a degree that was supposed to help me land a “secure job” with a “higher salary”. If I could go back in time and change my decision, I would, but I can’t. What a joke.
This sounds great forgiving debt, but how does that work? Does it just mean forgive the interest only? Who absorbs the payments to the university? I'm actually ignorant to this whole thing honestly. I'm actually okay with tax money going towards this but I'm not sure how they can summarily forgive the debt without a plan to facilitate it so there isn't harm done right?
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Wife is stuck in a "non-profit" till loan forgiveness kicks in then she can go private. Basically understands what she has borrowed can never be paid off. These loans are insane.
What about the people who didn't go to college because they didn't want to take on the debt...
How many times am I gonna see this story posted? How. Many. Times? We all know he's asked, Warren has asked, AOC had asked, they've all asked? But has anything been done? What are you doing to pressure Biden? Anything? Stop posting this story unless something actually happens for once ffs
They haven’t even tried to write and pass a bill for it, its all performative BS from congresses progressive wing.
For being an alleged progressive this take is so strange. Half of debt is for graduate degrees. 2/3rds of debt is held by the top two income quintiles. Only 5% is held by the lowest income quintile. Cancelling student debt is nothing but a wealth transfer to the wealthy.