Canceling $10k of student loan debt is stupid.

[Anonymous]

No one keeps track of how student loan money is spent either.

There are many kids who use loans to fund their spring break trips. Hell, while I was in grad school, we had a guy in our program take out $40k in loans so he could buy studio equipment for his side rap career/hobby. I know tons and tons and tons of med students who took out student loans 'for med school' and used it to spend on going out to the bars every weekend, traveling during the summer, and for all other stupid garbage. But yeah, let's forgive it all without tracking how any of it was spent.

[Anonymous]

I agree they should cancel $0 of student debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I paid my loans back like a responsible adult. Everyone else can do the same.

So much ahole entitlement mentality these days. This country is going down the toilet.

First it is $10k. Then they'll demand $20k. Then it's $40k. When does it end? What does forgiveness actually do to control costs of college? 5 years from now when you have another generation of whiny ass borrowers, what's going to stop them from demanding another round of forgiveness?

It never ends. Why don't you forgive my mortgage while you are at it? People who didn't take out loans or who paid their back also deserve something.

You can sell your house to pay off your mortgage. The people most crippled by student debt are those who had to drop out for whatever reason. Maybe college shouldn't require decades of debt?

100% agree. College shouldn't be close to as expensive as it is. That said, many people make terrible decisions when choosing their (one or multiple) majors that can never earn enough to repay what they owe, as well as take out additional loans to live the high life while in school. They general public shouldn't be saddled with funding those bad decisions.

agreed. not interested i paying for college students' pizza and beer and that's what this comes down to. So we are supposed to forgive someone's loans for a degree they earned which puts them in a position to earn a lot more money over his/her lifetime than the person who didn't go to college? Nope, if you got the degree, you have received what the loan was for and the degree can't be revoked or repossessed. So, yep, you pay for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one keeps track of how student loan money is spent either.

There are many kids who use loans to fund their spring break trips. Hell, while I was in grad school, we had a guy in our program take out $40k in loans so he could buy studio equipment for his side rap career/hobby. I know tons and tons and tons of med students who took out student loans 'for med school' and used it to spend on going out to the bars every weekend, traveling during the summer, and for all other stupid garbage. But yeah, let's forgive it all without tracking how any of it was spent.

It's safe to say that at least 10k per borrower went towards tuition

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I paid my loans back like a responsible adult. Everyone else can do the same.

So much ahole entitlement mentality these days. This country is going down the toilet.

First it is $10k. Then they'll demand $20k. Then it's $40k. When does it end? What does forgiveness actually do to control costs of college? 5 years from now when you have another generation of whiny ass borrowers, what's going to stop them from demanding another round of forgiveness?

It never ends. Why don't you forgive my mortgage while you are at it? People who didn't take out loans or who paid their back also deserve something.

You can sell your house to pay off your mortgage. The people most crippled by student debt are those who had to drop out for whatever reason. Maybe college shouldn't require decades of debt?

Many college options do not!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Canceling any debt is stupid. You borrowed, you pay.

I agree, we should eliminate bankruptcy and bring back debtors prisons. Maybe airline executives would do a better job with that incentive. Or are you only talking about 18 year old kids being forced to make life altering decisions?

Any means any

The problem is that the current system requires poor people to pay back all their debt while wealthy people and corporations (who carry WAY more debt) are often able to escape debt via lawyers and other legal mechanisms designed to help them discharge debt for less than they owe.

Student debt is unique in that it can't be discharged in bankruptcy. It's also unsecured debt -- it's not like you can sell the underlying education to pay off your loans the way you can with a house. We need a policy solution to the problem of ballooning student debt because it impacts the economy very negatively. It keeps people from buying homes (or even moving out of their parents homes into rentals), it is impacting the birth rate, it limits the ability of people to open businesses or invest. We need a longterm solution to student debt, and that probably includes some amount of debt forgiveness for people who are already buried in debt, followed by rule changes to prevent people from ever getting this deep in debt to begin with.

-- Signed, someone who paid off 80k in student loans myself and does not oppose debt forgiveness for others because it's a smart policy decision and is not actually about personal fairness to me

Except it’s not a smart policy decision, it disproportionate benefits the wealthiest 30 percent of the population, doesn’t solve the underlying issues, and is a stimulus/inflationary.

I agree these loans should be restructured/have interest rate lowered. Time for supporters to stop waiting for the hand out and elect legislators who can get it done.

PP here. I agree that the 10k cancellation across the board is weak and would also prefer to have loans restructured and interest rates lowered. I think one happy middle that would target the neediest borrowers would be to cap the total amount of interest people can pay on loans. I think the people who get deep in trouble are the ones who wind up paying small amounts for a long time and barely touch their principal. The companies that service student loans often push these long repayment plans with graduated payments (meaning your early payments are quite small and interest only) because it makes them a lot more money. And students often enter into these plans when they are right out of school and maybe still job hunting or making an entry level salary, so the idea of starting with a lower payment is really appealing.

If we capped the amount of total interest borrowers could be asked to pay on loans, then many people who are still in repayment would move to principal-only payments now, which would help them get out of debt faster while still repaying the money they borrowed. And it would also disincentivize lenders from pushing these long, graduated repayment plans. If they are going to get the same amount of interest either way, why not encourage borrowers to pay more up front?

The point is that it doesn't make sense to just focus on the behavior of borrowers, who are kids when they take out this money and often still very young and not very financially savvy when they go into repayment. There is a lot of shady and unhelpful behavior from lenders and loan services that is making this problem, much, much worse, and we need a way to address it. I think people who argue against loan forgiveness altogether don't understand how dysfunctional the student loan industry is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
No one keeps track of how student loan money is spent either.

There are many kids who use loans to fund their spring break trips. Hell, while I was in grad school, we had a guy in our program take out $40k in loans so he could buy studio equipment for his side rap career/hobby. I know tons and tons and tons of med students who took out student loans 'for med school' and used it to spend on going out to the bars every weekend, traveling during the summer, and for all other stupid garbage. But yeah, let's forgive it all without tracking how any of it was spent.


It's safe to say that at least 10k per borrower went towards tuition

I would like to know exactly what kind of loans those were. I thought many loans were transferred directly to the college bursar's office for tuition and housing expenses. ??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Canceling any debt is stupid. You borrowed, you pay.

I agree, we should eliminate bankruptcy and bring back debtors prisons. Maybe airline executives would do a better job with that incentive. Or are you only talking about 18 year old kids being forced to make life altering decisions?

Any means any

The problem is that the current system requires poor people to pay back all their debt while wealthy people and corporations (who carry WAY more debt) are often able to escape debt via lawyers and other legal mechanisms designed to help them discharge debt for less than they owe.

Student debt is unique in that it can't be discharged in bankruptcy. It's also unsecured debt -- it's not like you can sell the underlying education to pay off your loans the way you can with a house. We need a policy solution to the problem of ballooning student debt because it impacts the economy very negatively. It keeps people from buying homes (or even moving out of their parents homes into rentals), it is impacting the birth rate, it limits the ability of people to open businesses or invest. We need a longterm solution to student debt, and that probably includes some amount of debt forgiveness for people who are already buried in debt, followed by rule changes to prevent people from ever getting this deep in debt to begin with.

-- Signed, someone who paid off 80k in student loans myself and does not oppose debt forgiveness for others because it's a smart policy decision and is not actually about personal fairness to me

Good points - my main problem with the loan forgiveness is that it doesn’t address the root causes to begin with- why has college become so expensive? It used to be fairly easy to pay your way through a 4 year degree, now it’s really only possible if you attend community college and live close enough to a state university to live with your parents while completing a bachelors. Even then, everyone I know who tried to work full time while going to college took way longer than 4 years to finish.

And why are students and their parents being approved for these massive loans to begin with? As another PP pointed out, having so many young adults saddled with student debt os bad for the economy, and it gets worse and worse every year. I don’t know what the solution is but this just seems like kicking the can down the road.

[Anonymous]

Maybe the govt should pick up the tab for child support for teen parents. After all, they were just teens, why should they be stuck on a payment plan based on income for an irresponsible choice when they were just kids? Right, because taxpayers don't want to be on the hook for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
No one keeps track of how student loan money is spent either.

There are many kids who use loans to fund their spring break trips. Hell, while I was in grad school, we had a guy in our program take out $40k in loans so he could buy studio equipment for his side rap career/hobby. I know tons and tons and tons of med students who took out student loans 'for med school' and used it to spend on going out to the bars every weekend, traveling during the summer, and for all other stupid garbage. But yeah, let's forgive it all without tracking how any of it was spent.

I doubt you've ever known anyone who was in medical school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the govt should pick up the tab for child support for teen parents. After all, they were just teens, why should they be stuck on a payment plan based on income for an irresponsible choice when they were just kids? Right, because taxpayers don't want to be on the hook for it.

I know right? How about juvenile detention centers? They are kids after all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Canceling any debt is stupid. You borrowed, you pay.

I agree, we should eliminate bankruptcy and bring back debtors prisons. Maybe airline executives would do a better job with that incentive. Or are you only talking about 18 year old kids being forced to make life altering decisions?

Any means any

The problem is that the current system requires poor people to pay back all their debt while wealthy people and corporations (who carry WAY more debt) are often able to escape debt via lawyers and other legal mechanisms designed to help them discharge debt for less than they owe.

Student debt is unique in that it can't be discharged in bankruptcy. It's also unsecured debt -- it's not like you can sell the underlying education to pay off your loans the way you can with a house. We need a policy solution to the problem of ballooning student debt because it impacts the economy very negatively. It keeps people from buying homes (or even moving out of their parents homes into rentals), it is impacting the birth rate, it limits the ability of people to open businesses or invest. We need a longterm solution to student debt, and that probably includes some amount of debt forgiveness for people who are already buried in debt, followed by rule changes to prevent people from ever getting this deep in debt to begin with.

-- Signed, someone who paid off 80k in student loans myself and does not oppose debt forgiveness for others because it's a smart policy decision and is not actually about personal fairness to me

The thing I learned at my first job out of college working at a small business was that he wanted to be profitable, not so profitable that he had to pay too much in taxes.

If it looked like we were going to be too profitable that year, he'd start making donations to his charitable orgs that he set up.

[Anonymous]

^^ Using your theory, who keeps track of how you spend a 2nd mortgage money?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Canceling any debt is stupid. You borrowed, you pay.

I agree, we should eliminate bankruptcy and bring back debtors prisons. Maybe airline executives would do a better job with that incentive. Or are you only talking about 18 year old kids being forced to make life altering decisions?

Any means any

The problem is that the current system requires poor people to pay back all their debt while wealthy people and corporations (who carry WAY more debt) are often able to escape debt via lawyers and other legal mechanisms designed to help them discharge debt for less than they owe.

Student debt is unique in that it can't be discharged in bankruptcy. It's also unsecured debt -- it's not like you can sell the underlying education to pay off your loans the way you can with a house. We need a policy solution to the problem of ballooning student debt because it impacts the economy very negatively. It keeps people from buying homes (or even moving out of their parents homes into rentals), it is impacting the birth rate, it limits the ability of people to open businesses or invest. We need a longterm solution to student debt, and that probably includes some amount of debt forgiveness for people who are already buried in debt, followed by rule changes to prevent people from ever getting this deep in debt to begin with.

-- Signed, someone who paid off 80k in student loans myself and does not oppose debt forgiveness for others because it's a smart policy decision and is not actually about personal fairness to me

Except it’s not a smart policy decision, it disproportionate benefits the wealthiest 30 percent of the population, doesn’t solve the underlying issues, and is a stimulus/inflationary.

I agree these loans should be restructured/have interest rate lowered. Time for supporters to stop waiting for the hand out and elect legislators who can get it done.

PP here. I agree that the 10k cancellation across the board is weak and would also prefer to have loans restructured and interest rates lowered. I think one happy middle that would target the neediest borrowers would be to cap the total amount of interest people can pay on loans. I think the people who get deep in trouble are the ones who wind up paying small amounts for a long time and barely touch their principal. The companies that service student loans often push these long repayment plans with graduated payments (meaning your early payments are quite small and interest only) because it makes them a lot more money. And students often enter into these plans when they are right out of school and maybe still job hunting or making an entry level salary, so the idea of starting with a lower payment is really appealing.

If we capped the amount of total interest borrowers could be asked to pay on loans, then many people who are still in repayment would move to principal-only payments now, which would help them get out of debt faster while still repaying the money they borrowed. And it would also disincentivize lenders from pushing these long, graduated repayment plans. If they are going to get the same amount of interest either way, why not encourage borrowers to pay more up front?

The point is that it doesn't make sense to just focus on the behavior of borrowers, who are kids when they take out this money and often still very young and not very financially savvy when they go into repayment. There is a lot of shady and unhelpful behavior from lenders and loan services that is making this problem, much, much worse, and we need a way to address it. I think people who argue against loan forgiveness altogether don't understand how dysfunctional the student loan industry is.

This is spot on. It's great that YOU were able to pay off your loans when you were paying 2-4% interest. It's a totally different ball game when you're paying 6-7% or more and making payments each month while barely touching the principal. Predatory, for-profit lenders are the problem, and reform should be focused on reforming the student loan industry.

[Anonymous]

The higher education system needs to be revamped as does the student loan and credit industry.

Why do multinational corporations which pay nothing or next to nothing in taxes get enormous federal government bailouts when they mess up. That's not capitalism.

Amending the bankruptcy laws would have a dramatic effect on the free flow of student loan funds. If you want accountability, then schools, lenders, government officials, and borrowers should all should be held accountable. Higher education marketing materials need to be regulated and need to verify their claimed employment and earnings statistics. Lenders and schools need to restrict lending to normal credit standards.

Biden is forgiving $10,000 just to live up to a campaign promise. Doesn't solve anything. Pushes the ballooning problem to the next election cycle.

Senator Elizabeth Warren / Senator Bernie Sanders needs to make a stronger stand. She could have withheld her vote on the Inflation Reduction Act in order to get the more reasonable amount of forgiveness, and she needs to revamp other factors causing this problem or it will only get worse. These two Senators were in a position of power; instead we let a Senator install a provision in the bill to assure that the ultra-rich get richer by preserving tax favored status for carried interest.

In short, we need a third political party to represent the interests of the majority of US families and voters.