Suppose President Biden announces that he is canceling all student debt, as many former students would like him to do. What happens to this year's crop of college seniors when they graduate in 2023? Is their debt canceled too? If not, we have a bright line of people ending with the Class of 2022 who have their debt canceled while the Class of 2023 and beyond gets nothing.
(If the cutoff is entering freshmen, you have the same problem, just with slightly different years as the cutoff point.)
Would this fly? Or would you just produce a large number of really pissed off college students who want to know why Mr. 22 got his debt canceled while Ms. 23 still has her entire load to pay off?
I don't see how you make this work. Even if you figured out some complicated scheme to phase out college debt over a series of graduating classes, I doubt you could make it work. It's the biggest obstacle facing the student debt cancellation movement, but nobody ever talks about it in public.
Meanwhile, you also have people who graduated years ago, and managed to pay off their student loans some time since.
How many of them are going to be quite resentful of younger people who get a break on their loans? How many of them are also going to be pissed at Pres. Biden for giving later grads a break?
Or parents who helped pay off student loans with their own savings or loans. It is my experience that people really resent finding out that by “following the rules” they have been screwed while people who didn’t benefited.
This.
True for social security, medicare any god damn program. Might as well not do anything right?
Everyone qualifies (ultimately) for Social Security and Medicare.
They do NOW.
It was a literal argument at the time those programs were instituted "what about people who were frugal and saved for their retirement and medical expenses? Giving money to the irresponsible layabouts who didn't will make them resentful!"
That argument was bogus then and its bogus now. "People will unjustifiably resent this" is never a good reason not to do something.
It’s way harder to successfully make that argument when everyone gets the benefit.
I’m not saying nothing should be done, particularly for people whose loans were for private specialty schools that went bust leaving the students in the lurch. Those people were defrauded and I don’t think there would be too much pushback for a debt forgiveness program for them.
And it’s true that you will never make any program perfect. So the way to go would be to make things as fair as possible. My own suggestion would be to make the remainder of the amount owed be interest free. That way you could point out that everyone has to pay back what was borrowed.
When those programs were instituted they were to be continuing. My understanding is this is a one-shot.
Yes -- something for everyone vs something for a few one time -- big difference.
How is that unjustified resentment? If you saved for retirement you still get SS and Medicare. If you paid your kids loans you got screwed. Sounds justified to me.
"You must get screwed because I was screwed, and if you aren't I'm going to resent the person who alleviated your screwing" is the very definition of unjustified.
Thank you. I would be pleased for those who no longer gave to carry that burden, even if I had to years before. It’s good for their future and the country’s. And I’d work harder to make that level of education free for everyone, as it should be. So much of “higher” education is such a scam as long as the main focus for so many of those institutions is money, not education.
what about people who were frugal and saved for their retirement and medical expenses? Giving money to the irresponsible layabouts who didn't will make them resentful!
Those seem like much weaker arguments than the arguments against loan forgiveness. Social Security is not and never has been sufficiently generous to make up for a lifetime of low savings. People who retire with a nest egg aren't being "penalized" because some other older person will be saved from starvation; no, they'll still enjoy much more comfort. Same thing with money put aside for medical expenses in the case of Medicare. The poorer retiree will have his medical needs addressed, and the wealthier retiree can instead use that money to buy a boat.
In short, your analogies here don't hold water.
This is true. But those so-called rule-followers often actively resist knowing that the rules have changed. Ah, but cost of airing a greivance under the guise of good stewardshp - priceless.
Certainly, regardless the money used on this would be far better spent on future student support and particularly on development of technical training initiatives for working class profiles for whom Uni is a bad fit, and tailored to support integration for Green Economy areas like renewables, like grid upgrading, like e-mobility (vehicles etc).
Has dual utility of directing support to a socio-economic profile the Democrats are bleeding on, and also having real economic utility to support and advance an adaptation for green economy agenda.
Rewarding high-internet profile activist profile Lefty Uni students will accelerate the Democrats poor positioning in these demographics and loud Lefty Uni profiles are a fickle and ungrateful lot regardless.
If I was dictator I’d forgive the debt of the students who were basically defrauded.
Like Trump University and the like borrowers.
Those places shouldn’t have ever been allowed to exist.
Little by little Biden is doing that already, recently they forgave debt incurred attending ITT schools.
Having worked in Australia I think they have a superior system for student debt repayment.
https://studentloanhero.com/featured/international-student-loans-australia/
Note, Australian universities are generally similar to large US public schools versus the small, private universities that also exist in America.
Don’t
Just make PSLF 3-5 years instead of 10.
But people born today don’t get the COVID bucks. Are they going to stage a revolt? No. It’s the McMegans of the world telling miemos they should be mad someone else is getting something
I’d be pissed
I graduated in the last 5 years, got academic scholarships so I was able to pay the rest ($8000ish a year) from working during the school year and summers and savings from before
If I’d have known Uncle Sam would have written it off in the end I’d have a house by now instead of helping the dean of my college get a gilded toilet seat. Annoying
Meanwhile, I keep wondering about a similar question related to the Revanchist party's desire to steal my social security contributions.
I think everyone knows government action is not fair. What's interesting is which instances of unfairness upset people.
Personally, I'd solve this by looking at debt to income ratios. Someone working at a grocery store with $50k student loan debt could serve two roles going forward: a wage slave feeding banks until retirement, or someone who could have build something, if their life wouldn't be ruined for taking a risk. (Yes, I do know someone that describes.)
And then make that forward-looking. It is also unfair. So?
THIS.
I know I'm dreaming here, but I've long believed that any student debt relief program needs to be combined with an extensive student loan reform program to take care of all those current and future students.
No one in charge wants to hear this but first step would be to deprivatize the student loan industry. When I went to college in the late 80s to early 90s, my loans were directly through the state of Pennsyvlania; interest rates were low and stable, and there was plenty of payment forgiveness during lean times when folks were unemployed. The current systems working through banks guaranteed by the government (1) demands too much profit for investors and (2) encourages too much fraud to game the system. If the government is ultimately responsible for the debts anyway, might as well go back to just handling them directly.
Also, education should be seen as an investment and there should be a lot more subsidy of colleges and universities through both state and federal governments. Get tuitions low enough that lower-income folks have more choices, and elite schools have some price competition.
There was no college debt crisis until after the 90s or so. If we could get things back to the way they were we'd stem off a continuing debt crisis even after we forgive whatever amount of debt we're able to.
Definitely agree. The Feds can do this -- only back loans that come with income-based repayment plans + forgiveness after some # of years for the unpaid balance.
And allow debt to be discharged in bankruptcy -- with income-based repayment plans, you don't have to worry about people declaring bankruptcy just to get out of repaying these debts, because low income people will already have lower payments.
Dischargeable in bankruptcy would be the thing to go after first, IMHO.
Personal bankruptcy is an expensive option. While I agree that a more realistic option for discharge would be better, I feel certain that many folks with student debt would be very unsatisfied with the process, and impact, of the bankruptcy option.
There is not a unified Democratic position on this topic. The closest to a position is the Bernie concept of free college/forgive basically all debt. However, this position is not shared by all Democrats. Further, I would guess there are basically zero GOP votes for the aforementioned. Thus, the prospect for legislation is slim...
I’ve never heard a solid argument for why we would benefit as a nation from more people with Bachelors degrees
It’s always “something something more education is better something something bachelors is the new HS diploma” but do we really need more 4 year degree holders? Seems we have a surplus these days given the low skilled work many with their bachelors end up doing
Not everyone is suited to get their bachelors. Im all for more investment in high schools and below but 4 year colleges are a goldfish when it comes to spending. They grow to the size of their container and will always find something to dump money into. Just not sure it needs to be subsidized more than it already is
Why not make a high school diploma worth something?
Even though you're a right-wing troll I'll give you this one. And you know way what use to be called vocational training is so tough to implement these days? It's because right-wingers don't want to put out the bucks to properly equip schools.
It burns me that Virginia is sitting on a huge surplus and the idiot vest wearing governor wants to rebate it "back to the people" instead of supporting the state university systems so folks don't have to incur so much debt in the first place.
Out of the Jesse Ventura, Tommy Thompson, George W. Bush playbook for surpluses.
But give Jesse the Mindless this: when current Minnesota GQP governor nominee Scott Jensen compared the Fauci antihealth despocy to 1930s Nazi Germany, Jesse came out against it. No small feat, for someone who, from his recent podcasting career, I would have pegged for ANTIVAXXX adjacency, at least, like other third party twits Jill Stein & Andrew Yang.
When I was in law school in the late 80s and early 90s, all of my loans came from private banks, with federal subsidization to back them up. That changed around 15 years ago. Federally subsidized loans are made directly by the federal government and processed through private companies, but they are not loans from banks. Yes, there are still private student loans, but those are for students who need to borrow more than the Feds subsidize.
That said, I agree with you about addressing future costs and not just forgiving existing loans. In California, the state's "contribution" to the cost of public universities has dropped significantly over the last 30 years. Society's benefit from an educated work force apparently is not a benefit people see a need to pay for. That needs to change and what the state and feds contribute directly to public universities needs to increase with a commitment from those universities to permanently reduce their costs in exchange for the increased contributions. Apparently, it isn't happening now because nobody trusts the universities to follow through on such a commitment. And there you have the crux of the problem ... universities want independence and freedom without strings attached to their funding.
Agreed debt relief should arrive only along with comprehensive, root and branch reform of higher education financing.
THIS is what we should do (courtesy of Kevin's former employer):
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/07/12/what-elizabeth-warrens-free-college-plan-gets-wrong/
Feds pick up tuition (but not room/board) for colleges that can hold tuition down to a set amount (call it $14k for planning purposes). No "top-up" fees allowed (colleges can't charge beyond that figure). Both private and public colleges eligible, so, it's on an institution by institution basis.
Schools who want to participate would have a strong incentive to hold the line on administrative bloat and country club athletic centers. So, not perfect equity—you're still on your own if you want to attend a fancy campus charging 80k a year, or you aspire to study filmmaking in Greenwich Village.
But a plain vanilla BA would be available on a debt free basis by all American students. For political purposes, I'd probably be willing to add in a pay-back component, ie, students who participate fork over 5% of their wages for 10 years, or what have you (I'd even be inlined to INCREASE the time period for those who don't graduate).
If we could one day enact something like this, I'm all in for a decent dollop of student loan forgiveness. Otherwise it doesn't accomplish much, except (I fear) helping Republicans win elections.
Agree. ANY type of forgiveness not paired with reform is a temporary, generic band-aid at best. It should also come with some level of education reform as well. The universities are co-conspirators in this crisis, afterall.
When a boat is sinking, all you can really do is watch the people drown.
Sure, it sounds like a good idea to go to great lengths to rescue the people on board, but nobody talks about what expectation you might set for the future. Or how angry this will make the passengers who suffered injuries from prior boat accidents.
That you didn't rescue people in the past and that you haven't ensured this will never happen again means that you can't do anything for the poor passengers sinking below the surface right now.
This is all pretty obvious.
Ya'll are way over-thinking this.
Just go ahead and cancel all accumulated interest on existing loans with a pay off of at least $10K per borrower even if that means paying off some of the principal.
In a year, do the same for anyone who has taken on new student loan debt in previous 12 months. A year later, do the same. After that, it's on the next president to be the one who either continues with the precedent or gets the blame for not doing it.
If what you propose were to hold politically, we will have set up a perpetual subsidization scheme for country-club campuses and ever-growing numbers of $350k/year Assistant Deputy Accociate Deans of Inclusion and Community Outreach—all on the taxpayer dime.
No thanks.
I want to see us move to a system that will enable any American who needs a college degree to earn one debt free.
But we have to look at costs/incentives. We need root and branch reform. Not a blank check.
Noah Smith (Noahpinion substack) had an interesting set of rules for this.
1 -- limited $ amount per person, so you don't make it too regressive.
2 -- going forward, have the Feds only support loans that come with a repayment plan that limits your repayment to only a fixed percentage of your income, for a fixed (but large) number of years.
3 -- no more forgiveness programs after #2 is established
I think item #2 is the most important, since it puts the loan program on a sustainable footing. But I think politically Biden wants to help young people out, and #1 allows a large # of people to be helped, without being a huge give away to the wealthiest (who owe the most $ per person).
I've read that 40% of people with loans never completed a degree, and hopefully they owe the smallest amount, and thus will still benefit from a limited plan. And from what I've read, we *are* heading to a limited plan.
But this also has to take into account future earnings and loan amount. You can’t subsidize a Harvard Education for someone who wants to teach kindergarten or work for a local non profit
On the contrary, those are precisely the people who should have the finest educations subsidized.
Agree -- well-educated folks that want to serve are one of the key reasons we want to do forgiveness.
This Eisenhower Republican agrees with you.
You cannot predict the future. I'm the highest earning among my siblings yet I have a BA in history. One sibling has a STEM masters but makes about 1/2 of what I earn and my other sibling with a career focused degree makes a bit more than my other sibling.
it's a fool's errand to guess future earnings.
Indeed. Find something that you love to do and then do it. Gap years are your friend.
Great advice. Most anyone has no idea what they love that will earn money to live.
Great advice. Most anyone has no idea what they love that will earn money to live.
Yep. And few people who loathe their field will end up truly successful.
Since payoff of the loans does nothing to address the costs of schools, then the issue will persist.
As long as States under fund their schools and the Feds are willing to provide loans to cover the costs, there will always be this high debt burden.
Exactly this. Schools need to have some skin in the game and are the last creditor to get paid
Exactly. If blanket forgiveness, however well intentioned and proper for current loan holders, what then to next years tuition going up 10-20% with "oh don't worry about that loan you'll need, the Feds will forgive it LIKE LAST TIME." I can't help but think this whole loan thing is a giveaway to Colleges and Unis, many who MIGHT deserve it, but gotta believe many don't (hello Trump U!) Better we suck it up and re-fund public schools so that they are competitive and inexpensive. (I went to UCLA in the mid 70's for $260/quarter. I'm more than happy to pay more taxes to make that happen for everyone.)
For decades, folks from up north have been coming to the south for college education because, contrary to what you would expect, state funding is better in the south and tuition is far lower. Even out-of-state tuition in states like Georgia and Florida is significantly less than in-state tuition in states like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
True, in the 1980s a ton of folks from New Jersey and New York went to UVA and VA Tech, I'm sure that's still the case now even though tuition has been jacked up as governors in the past 30 years slashed state support.
Tuition is higher in the south now but still lower than in the northern states. Just to take one example, UMass is about 16K for in state tuition. UF is around $6000 in state, but $21K out-of-state. So that does not 100% illustrate my point, but does show that college is still way cheaper in the south.
Nah, just thirsty prep school douchebags hoping to score some Southern poontang.
This was a pure pander solution by Sen Warren in search of a problem and she hoped it would get her some of the Young Bernie voters. Somehow it became part of the Dem platform despite very little popular support among the groups Dems need to make headway on. About 10% are delinquent and sure others struggle, but which constituency groups are pushing for this. It is unwise and unfair and should be jettisoned from the platform immediately. Nobody ever explained “how this happened” or how it would avoid being repeated
I don't think you have.to forgive any loan principal. Lowering or zeroing out the interest rates on student loans would allow much faster reduction.of principle and/or lower monthly payments.
Lower interest rate and extend maturity to reduce monthly burden
If anyone has a better idea that doesn't involve legislation, I'm all ears.
People keep putting forward their own fantasy student loan reform plans, both here and elsewhere. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, but they're all completely useless in a practical sense because they require enabling legislation and as such cannot be implemented either now or in the foreseeable future.
Debt relief, on the other hand, both helps people and is something that can be done unilaterally by the executive, since the legislation permitting this already exists. Is it the BEST solution? No, of course not. Is it better than doing nothing AND something that can be done? Sure is!
I also am baffled by the contention of "I don't see how you solve this." Solve what? Some people being upset they don't get a bite of the apple? That's not an actual problem, that's a consequence, and when it comes to good policy our stance on the consequences should be "we accept it gladly."
Using your obtuse logic, we should end all subsidies for children, given how adults w/o children will be losing out; eliminate mortgage deductions as some people will never be able to take advantage -- especially the poor -- of such deductions; end free libraries as few people use them except the poor and the middle class has to subsidize them; require public transit users to fully pay for the costs of public transit, etc.
Every policy will have winners and losers -- is the fact that there are losers in this policy the reason why you're opposed to it? Really?
But we don't forgive car loans, no matter how expensive or impractical the car. Great care has gone into designing all of the policies you mention to ensure that they are equitable and promote a public good. Also, I would argue that asking the rich and middle class to subsidize the poor is different from the reverse.
Nothing you've written contradicts the essential point of a policy that cancels $10K of student debt w/ an income cutoff. I would mark the cutoff at 150% of median, but that's just me.
I've heard that the cutoff would be $125,000 annual income.
Yeah, and I think it's too high.
It's GS-13 mid grade salary in the DC area. It's hard to set one cutoff for the entire country as salaries vary so much.
Yes, but as a policy choice, I would cut off at 150% of median. It could be state median, but it would nonetheless be based on 150% of median.
I have completely different priorities from others. My priorities are making sure that people are willing and able to go to college and take on careers/paths that earn less money but are no less important to society.
Will universities price in the debt forgiveness?
Food for thought,
https://mobile.twitter.com/anzu_is_online/status/1562140717157343232
Having kidnapped almost 6,000 children from Mariupol, Russia announces it's keeping them and handing them out for 'adoption',
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-announces-adoption-thousands-children-104931080.html
and each child comes with $300, all yours to keep.
Shades of Betsy de Vos's child trafficking operation aa phase 2 of Stephen Miller's child separation policy.
I wonder why Donald Trump, John Kelly, & Kirstjen Nielsen aren't bigger villains in Q's child protection dreamscape.
I'm of two minds about this. There are lots of people who were basically snookered into taking out big loans to attend private so-called universities and this problem needs to be fixed.
There are also lots of people who racked up significant debt attending expensive state schools and this is holding them back in life.
There are also lots of people out there who racked up really really big debts to attend their dream schools, like Duke or Vassar or some obscure upstate New York college where they could study Japanese poetry or some other non-lucrative subject, and also used their a lot of student debt to fund a comfortable lifestyle.
There are also lots of sensible, debt averse people who attended community college for 2 years to save money and then worked hard and attended inexpensive, less glamorous schools and ended up with little or no debt.
So yeah, some of these things are not like the others. My sympathy for someone who took out $300K in loans to attend Harvard and didn't end up with the elite job the expected is nil. My sympathy for people in these other situations is much greater.
There's a ton of conservative propaganda going back to Rush Limbaugh about mythical students who take out huge loans to major in esoteric degrees. But the stats don't bear that out. In this century degrees awarded in the humanities have plummeted. Mostly the huge loans are for professional degrees, law school, med school, vet school etc. Some of the esoteric degrees are paired with a practical degree, sometimes the odd degree is simply a prelude to law school.
Don't fall for the worthy versus unworthy borrower. It would cost far more to attempt a sorting out than it would be to forgive loans on my neutral terms such as income.
I don't need Rush Limbaugh (may he roast in hell) to tell me things I have personally observed. I can't claim to know all the stats but I personally know multiple people who took out huge loans to attend so-called elite schools to study humanities subjects. And I also have known in my life people who took out student loans so they could live in nicer apartments and eat out more often, etc. This experience has given me a deep suspicion of people who took out big student loans. It may be a prejudice but it is one earned through personal experience.
"You're not going to change my mind by pointing out I have anecdotes instead of stats and anyway I don't care about the stats!" What a prince of pontifical ... work you are.
But an Ivy league degree holder likely isn't working at Starbucks. Smart people with good social intelligence thrive on an sorts of paths.
Every morning I wake up and see the sun rise in the east, arc across the sky all day, and, in the evening, see it set in the west.
DON'T TELL ME THE SUN DOESN'T REVOLVE AROUND THE EARTH!! I PERSONALLY OBSERVE IT EVERY DAY!!!
This isn’t rocket science you start by forgiving the oldest debt working your way forward over the next 10 years. This combined with a four year phase out of student loan program. You see student loans are in fact giant transfer payments primarily states. Public colleges and universities have gone from being state supported to be tuition supported and that tuition is too often paid for by federal student loans. In the end federal student loans have given state legislatures the opportunity to cut higher education funding and have the feds through the students make up the difference.
What I don't get it how so many supposedly smart people don't see this is simply bad politics. They just want their debt canceled and don't care that it will make Dems totally eat it among swing voters who see this as pandering and unjust.
Even the Pod Save America guys think it's a "no brainer" when it is hugely unpopular among "gettable" voters in important states!
Yeah, those 'far-left' progressives who like to toot their own horn? They aren't. They are, however, completely despicable people.
People need to stop talking about this. Student loans have become predatory loans. Restructure them so it is possible to pay them off in a reasonable time rather than watch the balance get ever bigger. Tell colleges (especially private colleges, but not just them) that the free ride is over. They have to justify the actual costs to their students in order to be eligible for loan guarantees at all. Tell them to stop playing insurance company games with tuition and fees, where the list price is just a starting point for negotiations. Set a fair fee for everybody, no discounts, and any "scholarships" have to come from an actual pot of actual money, not creative bookkeeping. I've worked in higher education for over 30 years. It has become a racket. And there is already evidence that graduating high school seniors see less and less value in it.
Doesn’t the same problem exist with every new program? Weren’t people who incurred large pharmaceutical bills prior to the introduction of Medicare Part D similarly screwed? Or people who incurred large hospital bills prior to the limits on such bills introduced by the passage of the ACA/Obamacare? Or people who installed solar panels, bought an electric car, etc prior to the advent of subsidies and tax credits for doing such things? Or people who paid the marriage penalty for decades, then died before tax reform got rid of most of the penalty? Or people whose partners died before they could legally marry and inherit their estate tax free as well as collect their Social Security benefits?
Every new program or change to existing programs results in disgruntled losers somewhere. Not sure why the expectation for wiping out college debt is held to a higher standard than, say, wiping out medical debt through ACA & Part D expansions or wiping out retirement debt through changes to the tax, inheritance and marriage laws.
As an anecdote from my own life: my mom who passed away from cancer in 2020 really could’ve used the $2,000 cap on out of pocket expenses for Medicare recipients, as envisioned in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act. In her last 5 years of life, she spent on average $15,000 a year on cancer drugs.
By most people’s logic on college debt cancellation, I should be pissed off. My mom suffered a lower standard of living for years because of Part D’s deficiencies resulting in her having to spend way more out of pocket than apparently seniors in the future will have to spend.
But I’m not pissed off. I’m happy they’re finally fixing Part D’s deficiencies. And even though I’ve already paid off my college loans, I’ll also be happy when future students don’t face such crippling debt. Americans really need to stop being so selfish, and stop evaluating every single policy based on whether they personally benefit from it (vs the benefit to all of society in not having underclasses of people in debt for whatever reason).
I have really mixed emotions about this
How about gearing it towards minorities? Then expand the program later to include all students? We could lift an entire generation of minorities out of poverty providing a boost for their future off spring.
I also like the idea of keeping tuition LOW for all students as opposed to wiping out SOME student loans but then you run into the tired argument that this is like block grants which the republicans LOVE.
My 3 daughters all went to college and their loans are all paid off. Would I be pissed if they did a loan forgiveness now? Probably not. There's not good time to start this.
But for schools like ITT tech, Trump U those students should be bailed out and NO MONEY should be forgiven for Liberty U student loans.
I agree with the concept though
Any students who used borrowed money to go on Spring Break vacations should not have their debts canceled. Students who used borrowed money to live in high-end housing, purchase a new car, or even attend a semester abroad might also be considered for exemption of this benefit. The transition to borrowing to pay for college gave young adults too much discretion for money that they 'owned' through debt. A trap set for them by capital they were not mature enough to recognize and one that indentured them. Waiving interest on these debts after an 'x' amount of years may be a better method of helping them.
Goose
Which brings up another subject
How about those student athletes that can now make huge sums of money using their Nil (Name Image and Likeness)
Should they get their loans forgiven?
Should Kushner have gotten a PPP loan which is now forgiven?
Should Tom Brady?
Or Kanye West?
Its an interesting situation with college athletes
Students who purchased state of the art mountain bikes with their borrowed money (I knew a coworker who did) should not be complaining about having too much student debt.
Most student athletes do not earn NIL money and I doubt Tom Brady had a student loan. As a starter for a big time university football team he received a full time scholarship. Student athletes have become an emblem for what is wrong with public universities. Use of public institutions as businesses exploiting student labor has no place in academies of higher learning.
I am unfamiliar with Kanye's biography but his financial advisors would be sure to use any public subsidies available to maximize his revenue. Many student loan borrowers probably did not come from affluent families. Many students had to take out these loans to attend college. The raising of tuition matched the availability of government backed student loans, replacing the low tuition and grant system public universities used to offer as land grant schools.
I bring it up every time I'm in a discussion, but never get a good answer. Clearly, if forgiveness were to become the norm, colleges would have massive incentive to continue jacking up tuition at rates higher than inflation.
I do see one fairness issue, and that is that student loan interest rates were ridiculously high because they're incredibly safe for the lenders. High rates are just a giveaway to lenders, because these are all government backed and not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
If I were doing something about it, I would treat all payments already made on existing loans as principal, forgiving the debt completely if the student has paid back more than the original loan amount.
Then, to address going forward, I would have the government take back all the loan business and make loans at very low rates, 0.5% say.
"Clearly, if forgiveness were to become the norm, colleges would have massive incentive to continue jacking up tuition at rates higher than inflation."
For state colleges wouldn't that require a legislative act? Or approval?