Student Loan Forgiveness

I'd much rather students be bailed out than people that tanked the economy, which is what happened in 2008.

The problem with student loan forgiveness is the same problem I have with free college. How do you distinguish who truly deserves it, would benefit from it, and takes it seriously? Why should the rank and file taxpayers subsidize someone's stupid decisions, in the case of forgiveness, like someone who decided that a 6-figure debt to go to film or photography school was a smart endeavor, or pay for the college of some dumb, 18-year-old marginal student who plans to drink their way through 2 years of Big State U before flunking out. I'm all for targeting the subsidies an forgiveness but there's never going to be an agreement on who is deserving.

People who tanked the economy should have been hung from light poles. Sadly, they have rigged things so that we need some of them. Still, we might have tried it.

There is too much money loaned to students to bail them all out completely. Besides, they must be responsible for some of it, otherwise, there is no reason not to just hand out money to everybody. We have to be good stewards of taxpayer money, too.

I think we need a blue ribbon committee to figure out student loans. It can’t be free, or:

People who aren’t made for college will go.

And

Colleges will triple their tuition.

Both will break the bank.

R2 Poor people can get an Associate's degree for free with the Pell grant. It's been the case for years and every community has a college. If a student graduates from community college with good grades, they should get tuition assistance to transfer for a Bachelor's.

No, but they should drop interest rates and ridiculous fees.

I don't mind paying tuition or giving loan forgiveness to people who went to college for a degree that we need to improve America

Stem, teaching, and other degrees would be fine. But commucations, marketing, leadership and other less useful degrees are a waste

“Aren’t made for it” means people who really aren’t qualified and are getting a high school education there.

I think it should be subsidized but schools need to be regulated to keep costs down, and students need to pay some of it. Perhaps there needs to be loan forgiveness at some point or to some amount.

why should I pay for high school as well? It's not my kid so why should I care

Fuck it, we forgive the debt of countries who can't pay because the greedy bankers lent them money they should have known wouldn't be paid back.

People - like countries - stuck in debt can't buy stuff (houses, cars, etc) that keeps the economy going. There have to be ways (a percentage of income, longer loan terms, subsidized interest, far more scrutiny of borrowers, far more regulation of colleges more interested in collecting borrowed tuition fees than turning out graduates who can pay them back, reforming the bankruptcy laws, etc.) short of burdening students with debt they can never pay back. And "forgiveness" doesn't have to mean just writing it off - there are millions of ways college loans could be "repaid" besides sending the bank a check, like working at some social good in return for a reduction of the amount owed.

R9 I wish I could know you were being sarcastic, but I had a winter home in Florida and heard exactly that - "I paid for my kid's (public, tax-supported) schooling so why should I have to pay for anyone else's?" - way too often and they weren't kidding.

The fact that their kids were educated 30 or 40 years ago in Michigan or Ohio or Indiana and that there have been more kids born since then elsewhere never seemed to occur to them.

FORGIVE but never FORGET.

I agree with you R5. That's an example where I think the free college should be targeted.

[quote] The government can’t give money away without inciting anger from everybody else

Our government does this all of the time with their extravagant military spending -- billions on civilian contractors and maintaining useless military bases.

I don't understand why we don't have some way for former students to refinance their debt like you can a home mortgage, and it seems quite unfair that student loan debt is the most difficult to discharge in bankruptcy (but then again, the people who write bankruptcy law don't have and never had student loan debt, so there is that). That said, I can't get on board with student loan forgiveness. Nobody forced you to go into debt to go to school; there were and are other options.

The day of reckoning regarding debt is coming, whether it's personal debt or the national debt. We are a nation that lives on credit, and it is exposing us to repercussions that we cannot comprehend.

An acquaintance got a 10-year pay plan. What was left over, was forgiven.

I can forgive people for making a bad choice to borrow egregiously large amounts of money just to go to an expensive school, but they need to pay it back someday.

Student loan forgiveness is essentially a myth. You probably have a better chance at winning the lottery.

[quote]The fact that their kids were educated 30 or 40 years ago in Michigan or Ohio or Indiana and that there have been more kids born since then elsewhere never seemed to occur to them.

The principle of living within your means, not buying more than you can afford and not borrowing more than you can pay back is the same now as then.

The difference being that back then you could live within your means and not borrow more than you can pay back and still get a quality education.

[quote]commucations, marketing, leadership and other less useful degrees are a waste

You only learned to "commucate," r7. What was your major?

There's a major in "leadership"? I had a friend who majored in Outdoor Education. I could not keep myself from laughing, however internally, whenever it came up.

The military is a for profit industry.

So are prisons, R23.

“The principle of living within your means, not buying more than you can afford and not borrowing more than you can pay back is the same now as then.“

So why does that same principle not apply to those who file bankruptcy when their businesses fail, etc If that were a reality, it’s highly doubtful Trump would be POTUS, since he’d be working to pay back the millions he got to write off as a result of his multiple bankruptcies. The double standard is mind numbing.

[quote] That said, I can't get on board with student loan forgiveness. Nobody forced you to go into debt to go to school; there were and are other options.

Fuck you. That's all. Just fuck you, you miserable asshole.

R26 Thanks so much for your valuable addition to the conversation. Your thoughtful suggestions are so helpful.

Not.

R2 We're already doing that. I know a woman who has been getting certifications and technical diplomas at a community college for nearly a decade. She's too stupid to get an AA degree, but can get certifications in things like "office management" where the pass everyone. She got so many of these things that she no longer qualifies for Pell grants, so she started taking out loans.

[quote]why should I pay for high school as well? It's not my kid so why should I care

1) The country goes to shit when people aren’t educated (and I’m not talking about STEM, although that’s certainly useful), and 2) do you think everybody who paid for your education had kids?

If you are fit for so-called "quality education", then you can use the scholarship money your superior intelligence would draw.

Most kids are not "fit" for scholarship money. Not then. Not now. Should they not attend college?

So much, "Screw you, I got mine!" on this thread.

It won’t happen. Neither will Booger

What I wonder about is how this would play out for people like my brother-in-law who actually paid off his 81,000 student loan debt over a course of fifteen years. Would he have been better off to just say fuck it to the loan?

Meanwhile, back on the military ranch...

High schools really need to stop cramming the need for college degrees down students' throats. A friend went to a vocational high school for computers. He got a job before graduation, making good money, and the company paid for his college classes.

[quote] - "I paid for my kid's (public, tax-supported) schooling so why should I have to pay for anyone else's?

There are so many reasons, including:

It’s a nice thing to do for others.

It keeps them from breaking into your house, as uneducated adults

Is cheaper than prison.

A democracy requires shared experiences. We should better fund primary schools so that every child gets a proper education. Nobody should go to private school for “quality of education” reasons. Religious reasons are understandable, but not for basic education.

Well I certainly hope those with student loans don't get too excited because Mr. Booker has about a 1 in 400 million chance at becoming POTUS, at least in this go-round.

At the VERY least, they should make student loan debt dischargeable in bankruptcy.

[quote]If you are fit for so-called "quality education", then you can use the scholarship money your superior intelligence would draw.

Exactly how much of this money do you think is floating around out there? You start out talking about being “fit for college” and then you prescribe a remedy available to the top few percent. And if those top few percent want to go to the best schools, that remedy isn’t available anymore, because they tend to offer only need-based aid. IIRC, academic full rides — from what I’ve seen — are offered by schools that are trying to attract students who could go to better schools.

Despite what Fox viewers think, giving grants and scholarships and stipends and offering work study arrangements to students whose families can't afford to pay for their education out of pocket isn't a horrifying new Communist plot but a time-honored way to fill colleges with students who are actually the best and the brightest as opposed to just the richest.

I think the most the government should do is permit discharge in bankruptcy, and restructure the loans wiping out all the interest which in most cases is far more than the actual loan amount. Loan payments would decrease greatly and people would be able to pay them off far sooner. They'd see a light at the end of the tunnel.

R42. +1000

[quote] Meanwhile, back on the military ranch...

We spend 700 billion dollars a year on the military but we can't afford to educate or citizens OP really? The conclusions that ill informed people reach about what the government can and can't do are incredible. We can only do what serves the interests of the privileged and the wealthy. We cannot actually solve problems for average people. We cannot provide healthcare, we cannot educate, we cannot mar any progress. We can only maintain a status quo that protects and favors no one but the rich and the privileged. Americans have bought that bullshit hook, line and sinker.

[quote]Most kids are not "fit" for scholarship money. Not then. Not now. Should they not attend college?

Not an expensive one, and perhaps not a non-vocational one.

[quote]Fuck you. That's all. Just fuck you, you miserable asshole.

Let me guess, R26; you graduated quite a while ago and are still in debt.

You made your choices.

So did I.

The interest rates need to be dropped and the repayment schedules need to be adjusted so that it isn't like you just got the worst deal on a mortgage that you're going to have to pay off for 30 years.

A signature loan such as a student loan should be limited to as much as a person with the same age, income, and credit history could get as the limit on a new credit card. If no one would give an college-age person with no job a $100,000 credit card, why would anyone give them that much in student loans. It's the same risk.

[quote]We cannot provide healthcare, we cannot educate, we cannot mar any progress. We can only maintain a status quo that protects and favors no one but the rich and the privileged.

We could change the entire system... if we wanted to. But we don't. Go ahead and vote for Trump and/or any Republican — it's your choice — but stop bitching about your lot in life.

The country as a whole made the choice that they'd prefer the shitshow that every Republican administration brings to our lives. They let the Republicans steal elections in 2000 and again in 2016. The public continually votes against their self interests out of fear, greed, misogyny, racism and the factor that I think drives most votes: jealousy that somebody might get something that you won't. But owning the libs feels so good!

This will be reparations for white people.

R44, if it matters, I’m for a reduction in military spending, too.

Another thing to what I said at R42, monthly loan payments should be income based.

I just watched [italic] “Too Big to Fail.” [/Italic] I don’t know how I’ve missed it until now.

Anyway, in it, a Chinese official tells the Treas. Sec. that the Russians suggested to the Chinese in 2008 that the two countries both sell US bonds at the same time. It would have brought down the entire world’s economy. We’d still be digging out.

Our debt is a terrible vulnerability. We can’t keep spending as we have.

Maybe that’s the Russian plan. Cut taxes on the rich and inheritance tax, then when the US gets in financial trouble again, sell US bonds. It’ll be a disaster, and for the Russians, too.

[quote] You made your choices. So did I.

I'm not R26, but I have empathy for people -- essentially kids -- who were led to drown in college debt. For what its worth, I paid off my college loans. I was lucky to have stumbled from high school to community college for my lower division, general ed requirements. I didn't get the whole, storied dorm life experience, but this shaved off my eventual debt by at least 60%. I don't think that just because I lucked out with this path: Oh well, good for me, screw everyone else.

Is there anything that isn't the Russian's fault on DL? I bet they released the AIDS virus on unsuspecting homosexuals.

You can’t trust the poor with money. They’ve never had any, so how could they possibly know what to do with it!

The same goes for education. Those of us of prominence are the only ones it could possibly do any good!

R2: Yeah - like maybe really looking at their high school transcript, or perhaps their SAT score. Maybe set it up so we bolster the Junior Colleges for the remedial shit the dummies need.

High school transcripts don’t tell you what kind of breeding a person has.

I have no skin in the game as my student loans are paid off. I graduated in 2002 and my debt was 14K. Just how to students amass such debt? That being said I still think there needs to be some kind of relief. I think the best thing would be to lower the payments so low that they aren't a large part of anyone's monthly budget. Let everyone pay $50.00 a month. It'll still be millions being paid back per month and it isn't killing anybody.

What is the interest rate on a student loan today?

R60 The cost of college has gone up since then. I graduated in 2005 and tuition at the school I went to has gone up over 30% in just 14 years.

I graduated in 1973. The total cost for the four years of my undergraduate education, including room and board, was $22,000 - $5K a year when I started that had risen to a bit over $6K my senior year. I had no scholarships and was lucky if I made $2,000 in the summer. No loans: my bank was a generous grandmother who was floored, frankly, that I'd been admitted.

Now it's $260,000 or so there...

Part of the problem is that high schools do not prepare kids for any sort of meaningful financial planning at all, let alone long-term decisions which could affect them for decades afterwards. I guess one could argue that these are skills they should learn at home, but if their own parents are poor and struggling, what type of advice could they possibly offer in the first place?

But they do teach them Shakespeare and algebra, so there's that.

Free money is only good when it's for corporate tax cuts, top marginal rate tax cuts, estate tax cuts, and tax loopholes abused by the wealthy; not to mention farm subsidies, no carbon pricing, government enforcement of pharmaceutical monopolies, the rollback of bankruptcy protections, and every other form of corporate welfare. Oh wait, free money is also good for endless war in more than a dozen countries and the secret spying on everything American citizens do, I forgot.

The people making fiscal and monetary arguments are ignorant or trolling. Because the American dollar is the world's reserve currency and is essentially impervious to normal currency pressures, even very large commitments like loan jubilees are not fiscally endangering. (In fact, they would be a net economic benefit, because removing early debt increases the purchasing power and lifetime earnings of individuals and families, makes them more likely to purchase homes and have children, etc.) This logic should be blindingly obvious, since the currency and debt have absorbed the irresponsible fiscal policies of the last two decades with no change in the dollar's standing. Just so we have some facts here to help in assessing the OP's tendentious, moralizing argument, the cost of forgiving all student loan debt on the books right now is less than half the amount of the ten-year cost of the Bush tax cuts.

I won't bother illuminating about the skyrocketing price of college in the last several decades (at the same time as a recession that wrecked the life courses of young people disproportionately) because that basic factor is obvious to anyone who doesn't dwell under a rock.

Repealing the Trump and Bush top marginal and corporate tax changes would fund every program even the most ambitious Democratic platforms have proposed, including a full jubilee of student loans. That's without even adopting a return to the Reagan-era top marginal rate of 70%. No, none of this would have negative effects on the economy, and blurting out your "concerns" that it would marks you as economically illiterate.

Not going to touch the moral argument, because besides being deeply stupid it also seems to hang together with an uninformed understanding of economics that sees the economy as zero-sum. Opposition to loan forgiveness is politics and you should own that.

As an older man looking forward to retirement, I have little patience with nonsense. Said nonsense being that we could give trillions to banks, trillions to car companies and continue to bail out Wall Street and every damn pension plan. We continue to bail out every friend of politician.

Here's where I'll get myself into real hot water. We underfund social security with the charade that you only need to work 10 years to get lifetime benefits after age 62, full benefits at 67 and an increased benefit at 70. That includes anyone who came here to work on an H1B visa and worked only the 10 years. They'll get those payments for the rest of their lives as well - and millions do. We're the retirement system for much of India now, thanks to the technology industry that's screwed over a lot of people. It's convinced Congress there aren't enough people to do these jobs, so they need H1B visa increases - and dump the pension liability onto the taxpayers.

But when it comes to students, nope. They should suck it up and take on $200K in debt because that's the American way in some idiotic, imaginary way. Well, it's not the American way. The American way is to be a big corporation, screw over the taxpayer, pay off a Congresscritter so you get bailouts so your big company doesn't get stuck with the tab.

Meanwhile, kids go through college with no job prospects that are worth a damn because Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Ford, GM, GE have all outsourced their damn jobs to India, moved their manufacturing to China and Vietnam. That American dream is you go to college, move out of your parent's house and get a decent job. Save for a couple of years, buy a condo or a townhouse. In a couple of years, trade up to a single family and maybe a few years down the road - build your dream home.

Each progressive move drives the economy because you buy new furniture, new appliances: consumption, consumption, consumption. But we've undercut that by shifting all wealth out of the system back to the corporations and the banks as free handouts.

Well, screw that. We should pay off the student debt and restructure the entire approach to secondary education so the banks aren't profiting off of students and their parents. We also should kill of the 40 quarters nonsense for social security eligibility. It should be 25 years to be fully eligible, and less than 20 years gets nothing. Eliminate all H1B participation so Social Security is a program that is fully funded and exists for US, not a subsidy for technology company to replace Americans with foreign workers.

Enough of corporations back seat driving the government and the economy for their own benefit.

[quote]........(free) college. How do you distinguish who truly deserves it, would benefit from it, and takes it seriously?

We already have that problem within the current system that's supposed to be so great, so what difference would it make?

Any country that enriches and supports its population with free college will be stronger and more stable for doing it.

I agree that college should be free or low-cost - WITH A HUGE CAVEAT: that people should have demonstrated scholastic ability before college, not waiting until they get accepted to get serious. People who are not serious should be flunked out very quickly instead of cozied along. There also have to be some places set aside for people of low-income who are often forced to attend substandard grade and high schools. They shouldn't be penalized for the economic situation for their families. I also think that trade schools, apprenticeships, etc, should be subsidized. An educated workforce is money in the bank to the future economy of any nation. It's cutting ourselves off at the knees to put college graduates into permanent debt just for the "privilege" of attending college.

[quote] The difference being that back then you could live within your means and not borrow more than you can pay back and still get a quality education

That's wrong. We didn't live above our means back then. They didn't go on vacation a couple times a year, they didn't have $1,000 toys (iphones, ipads etc, etc, etc). And if our parents didn't have the money and we didn't want to work to pay for our college, WE DIDN'T GO. It was considered a sin to declare bankruptcy. Now, people want to live like celebs. They chose to take out these loans, they said they would pay them back and they should pay them back. Everyone wants to experience everything and have the best of everything. They spend and spend and spend. Unfortunately these morons are allowed to declare personal bankruptcy for living a lifestyle they can NOT afford.

I'm sorry they were too fucking stupid to realize a useless, easy degree wasn't going to allow them to pay off their loans. I chose my major (pharmacy) according to how much I would earn and more importantly, how easy it would be for me to get a job (those 2 are the keys). I never would have gone to college and gotten myself into serious debt for something that wouldn't earn at least 3 to 4 times the salary of a regular person without a degree (and that was back in the 1990's). There were many times I wanted to quit school, but I knew I would never be able to pay off my student debts if I did. Yes, the banks are scumbags, but the college kids are fucking stupid. And no one talked them into going into debt. They chose to do that

^^Oh, for fuck's sake. Another American sociopath who works in pharma. Why am I not surprised? Just more of what this country needs.

[quote] Now, people want to live like celebs.

People wanting things like affordable college, affordable housing and affordable healthcare is not trying to live "like a celeb." That's just basic, human, American desires which are not attainable!!

[quote] People wanting things like affordable college, affordable housing and affordable healthcare is not trying to live "like a celeb." That's just basic, human, American desires which are not attainable

They aren't looking for affordable. Most of them want to live way above their means. Everyone I work with has been on a cruise (mom, who ever mom is fucking, his/hers and ours kids). Most of these people earn $10 to $15 an hour. I have a $42 phone from Wal-Mart. Mom and her kids all have iphones and ipads. 98% of the women get their nails done every two weeks, they get their brows and eyelashes done. They go out to eat as a family once or twice a week. The ladies are always buying things online. They always have new clothes. When it's Halloween they take all their and who ever they are fucking's kids to the expensive haunted house thing that costs about $20 each. They've all been to the escape room thing and the Ferris Wheel thing downtown as well as Disney. They spend more on Christmas for their kids than my parents spent on me for the entire year. And of course Mom needs a big SUV to carry around her rag tag bunch of kids. She'll upgrade the vehicle in a few years. Her kids will destroy it. Because no one teaches their kids to take care of anything anymore. they all lose or break their apple products. I'll be driving my car until it has over 200,000 miles on it. All that shit above was paid for on credit cards. That means they simply couldn't fucking afford it. A credit card (where you are not paying it off every month) should only be for emergencies such as house, car or medical emergency. And don't start on medical emergencies are the number one cause of debt. These people's kids are all on some government (taxpayer funded) /state funded type of healthcare where everything is covered. And most of the parents never got married so they could have their kids on Medicaid and pay ZERO. They're all pro-choice , on the taxpayers dime. If they had to pay for that shit themselves they most certainly would avail themselves to abortions. But since taxpayers fund the births and healthcare of their bastards, they can afford to hold opinions that actually have life or death consequences for people that actually do live within their means

When it comes time for college, their kids will only pick a major in something they think is "fun" or "interesting". It's 2019. You can't do that anymore. The first 18 years of these kids life was devoted to having fun. They're delusional if they think the next 50 yrs can be the same way. Technology will be taking over most of our jobs (including mine) in the next 20 to 30 years.

Kids, pick your majors VERY WISELY, the rest of your life really, really DEPENDS on it

right on 72

FAR RIGHT on 72

Trumpian, even

R72, it sounds like a “keeping up with the Joneses” culture has developed within your workplace, and like some of these people might have second incomes to rely on. It seems odd that anybody has to tell you this, but the vast, vast, vast majority of people who make $10-15 an hour do not in fact go on cruises. Although I can see how people who are that close to not being able to cover rent and groceries might also need a break more than most people do.

R72 you're high if you think people living like that are making $10-$15 an hour. You're describing upper middle class lifestyles, with credit cards, cruises, etc., but at the same time, you claim these same people are using all these government benefits. Sure Jan.

At least get your story straight, because people in that income level could not afford the shit you're going on and on about, even with benefits, and they definitely aren't the type of assholes abusing credit cards. Just like these make believe government paid for abortions, yet the same people have a bunch of kids, all in brand new SUVS, isn't that right? You're determined to bash poorer people, but want to pin all the fuckery upper class people get away with on them as well -- typical.

You sound completely clueless. You're convinced you're the only person in America who is doing it correctly 🙄 while everyone else that struggles has absolutely nothing to do with inflation, shitty government, shitty employers, a shitty health care system, etc., ...and has everything to do with going on all these cruises, credit cards and fake nails, right? ...and no wonder this country is going to shit.

[quote]Now, people want to live like celebs.

No, some of us just want to be able to afford some basics without having to make life-altering sacrifices to achieve them.