What's your opinion of Student Loan Forgiveness?

Student loan forgiveness will be just like credit card forgiveness. When you go to file your taxes at the end of the year, you will be kicked in the ass really hard because the forgiven amount will be treated like income.

Don’t forgive student loans. Just stop charging so much for education as of right now. Let the people with debt either pay it off or apply for bankruptcy.

It’s really a free pass for institutions of higher learning to keep raising inflation.

I can see giving people at state schools some help. But I also believe students have to have skin in the game, so, it can’t be free.

R1 Not if you are insolvent. Also special legislation can make it a non taxable event.

With McTurtle winning again r5? No way.

Joe Biden will do very little in regards to student loan forgiveness. He’s talking about a token amount. At one time you could have discharged Student loans in bankruptcy the credit card industry didn’t like it they didn’t even like people discharging credit card debt in bankruptcy. So MBNA’s Attorneys go to bankruptcy law making it harder to file for bankruptcy I am making it impossible to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. This was such a bad llama that the first President Bush refused to sign it. President Clinton vetoed it twice. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said it was a bad bad law. What Senator Joe Biden who sold his soul to MBNA shepherding the bill through the Senate I am President Bush number two signed it into law. Joe Biden does not care about your student loans. Joe Biden does not care about you all he will do is it rewind to 2016 and then maintain the status quo and the status quo favors Wall Street the banks and big medicine.

[quote]Also special legislation can make it a non taxable event.

Which means taxpayers have to pick up the cost. Why should I have to pay for the poor decisions of someone who is much younger than I am and has more time to pay it off?

R7 here. Sorry about the laughable spelling and grammar but I was dictating this into my cell phone but I think U get the idea

Student loan interest rates are usurious...tie the rate to the savings account interest rates. It's not that people can't pay back the principle, it's that they can't get a handle on the compounded interest.

I know too many people who have gone to college for stupid shit that doesn't help them get good jobs. Most of them didn't finish school and almost all of them have jobs that they could have gotten without college degrees

I don't want to subsidize idiots who weren't even smart enough to pick a decent college major

They wanted to borrow that money and they said they'd pay it back. Most of these people have iPhones, newer cars and spend spend money as a hobby, but they can't pay their student loans

They WON'T pay their student loans

Cost of 2018 tax cut = $2.3 trillion.

Cost of cancelling student loans = $1.3 trillion.

Like the Obamas. What took them so long to pay their student loans? Barack's granny was a bank VP and Michelle had a high paying job.

I don't think it should be "forgiven" but I do think it should be allowed to be included in Bankruptcy. It's ridiculous that people can claim everything else in BK but not student loans. There should be rules where, if you have attempted to pay for say, 5 years and your income doesn't reflect an ability to pay, they can be included in BK.

BK comes with consequences. Therefore, it should be used as a last resort.

I took me 20 years to pay back my loans. I paid them in full. But my life has been forever altered by my stupid choice to go to college knowing I was footing the bill alone. My parents offered zero assistance. I believe if I hadn't gone, I would be a homeowner by now, but likely stuck in a shitty job I hate. Instead at 51, I earn pretty good money, but not enough to buy a house in California and not enough to ever be able to retire. I just couldn't afford to save much when my loan payments were $400 per month for 20 years.

Two of the popular objections you hear are "i paid it back, so everyone else has to because otherwise it wouldn't be fair to me" and "i don't want my tax dollars paying for xyz even though I don't really know how my tax dollars are spent anyway".

Neither argument holds weight, and both are usually made by selfish decrepit Boomer morons.

Took me 12 years, finally finished in 2007. Can I get re-imbursed? I want something out of this, Joe.

R16, for those of us who had our lives forever altered by being responsible and paying back what we agreed to borrow plus interest, we are totally within our rights to question how this "forgiveness" thing is supposed to work. Do we get back our money that we paid? I could sure use it. For me it would be about 75 grand on an original loan of 25 grand. That's life changing money.

To say, "just forgive it all" is ridiculous.

I would forgive no more than 50 percent of someone's loans and tie it to particular occupations and income levels.

The best trick here in the UK if your family are very wealthy and will give you an allowance (or a trust) and buy you a house (instead of you getting a job), is to run up a huge student debt and never repay it as you'll never become a taxpayer.

I have a friend who did exactly that and it was written off on her 50th birthday last year.

Or you could emigrate (still retaining UK citizenship) and work abroad, we have no obligation to inform UK tax authorities of earnings as long as we aren't a UK resident.

I'm still paying on mine at 45, but I'm with R15.

[quote]I don't think it should be "forgiven" but I do think it should be allowed to be included in Bankruptcy.

I'd like mine to be forgiven but I don't know that it is fair to those who paid theirs in full. They should be treated like any other debt though, and be able to be discharged.

A covid vaccine is not fair to hand out in the future because what about my brother and all the other people who already died of covid?

It's incredible how much people bleat on about taxpayers paying in this particular instance. Where's the outrage when it comes to bloated federal defense spending, corporate bailouts, churches getting away with paying [italic]zero[/italic] dollars in taxes, farmers getting billions and billions of dollars from taxpayer money, etc.?

I'm strongly opposed to this unless the government takes measures to lower tuition. Colleges shouldn't be allowed to hold more than a certain amount in their endowments and admin salaries should be capped. Any college that fails to comply should not receive federal student loans.

Read hundreds of opinions on it here.

Cancel them all.

The money that's not handed over to lenders every month goes back into the economy. Everybody wins. (Apart from fuckers who own the loans. But fuck them.)

The idea seems to drive some people crazy. Either we do this or we allow student loans to be forgiven in bankruptcy proceedings or some combination thereof + making community college programs free of charge.

People need a way to get out from under. People who graduated in 2008-2010 walked into a dead job market. Many of them took years to reach their intended level of employment, if they ever did. Knowing that even if they crash, burn and file for bankruptcy they'll still have student loans outstanding is disheartening. Have mercy.

Yeah, nobody ever rages about those, R23.

[quote]The money that's not handed over to lenders every month goes back into the economy. Everybody wins.

Why don't we cancel home mortgages, too? That would be a lot more money going back into the economy.

[quote] It's incredible how much people bleat on about taxpayers paying in this particular instance. Where's the outrage when it comes to bloated federal defense spending, corporate bailouts, churches getting away with paying zero dollars in taxes, farmers getting billions and billions of dollars from taxpayer money, etc.?

We complain about that too. You're just one of those uniformed people. I bet you picked a stupid major that has led to a poor paying job

Your major is the most important decision you'll ever make. You should have chose wisely. It's not our fault that you didn't

[quote]A $1 billion fund Congress gave the Pentagon in March to build up the country’s supplies of medical equipment has instead been mostly funneled to defense contractors and used to make things such as jet engine parts, body armor and dress uniforms.

Forgive all debt.

I’m with you R23. I’m always shocked at how little people know about fucking corporate welfare, especially.

People are bleating about this because it is easy to understand. “You owe 100,000? You pay back $100,000!” They don’t understand high finance, complicated tax loopholes and strategic bankruptcy, so they can’t really complain about it.

[quote]Your major is the most important decision you'll ever make.

God, even for DL, that is dumb.

Yale endowment is 30,000,000,000 and Penn State is 4,500,000. Is something wrong with this picture?

Wait, missed 3 zeroes on PSU 3,500,000,000 - sorry -

R30, you're wrong, you dumb cunt. I went the community college-to-transfer route, ended up in healthcare, and paid off what student debt I did have.

Unlike blowhards like you, I see few winners and no economic benefit to the situation as it stands.

OP, why shouldn’t the fact that you paid your loans off factor into it? People who support loan forgiveness always state “just because you had it hard doesnt mean others have to”. But, it isn’t that easy. The money you used to pay back your loans could have been used to buy a house, to invest, to start a business. And now that you paid it off, your taxes will have to go clear the debt for others. That is a valid concern to have.

I can support debt forgiveness up to a point. Maybe about 30,000. But the whole thing? No. That isnt fair to people who did play by the rules. Either that or give the people who paid their loans a chance to qualify for additional programs such as house purchasing loans at no interest, ect.

[quote]I see few winners and no economic benefit to the situation as it stands.

Tens of thousands exorbitantly paid college administrators across the country would disagree with you.

I'm very pro free public college and pro dissolving federal student loans. Would give an amazing boost to the economy.

Forgive the fucking loans and make state schools free or so low cost that they seem free, along with providing more grants to go to private colleges.

An educated population is a benefit to the entire nation, a debt-ridden population is not and a middle class who can't send their kids to college is no help to anyone.

[quote] Student loan interest rates are usurious...tie the rate to the savings account interest rates. It's not that people can't pay back the principle, it's that they can't get a handle on the compounded interest.

I went to state schools and my education is paid-off already. If, indeed, these interest rates are usurious, then I'd agree with lowering the rates.

Sorry, I disagree with forgiving student loan debts.

R41

A decent compromise might be to remove all interest on federally backed student loans for those with outstanding debt. It doesn't "cancel" the debt, but it would make it easier to pay off. One problem a lot of younger graduates have is seeing the principal going down zero dollars over a decade.

But the issue of exorbitant tuition still needs to be addressed so the problem doesn't come back worse on the next round.

There should be student loan forgiveness, socialized medicine, AND low-interest/low downpayment housing programs for the middle and working classes. I'd much rather see my tax dollars going to support those programs than corporate welfare or our bloated military.

College shouldn’t be free. It wasn’t free when I went so it wouldn’t be fair if it were free for others. No one should have it any easier than what I had to go through because it wouldn’t be fair to me. I am all I care about. I suffered therefore all must likewise suffer.

Student loan forgiveness wouldn’t be fair to the poor suffering banks and loan servicing companies who never ever catch a break and just want to help people by making money off of interest and late fees. What about them?? Won’t some please think of the student loan industry??

The government should provide Univeral Basic Income and free basic housing. Just start taxing the churches to pay for it all.

Higher education funding needs a complete overhaul. Look around the world and see which countries are getting the maximum bang for bucks while allowing their young adults to get on with life.

Meantime...give the drowning in debt generation a break. Either a one off debt reduction or allow them to pay the loans back at the fed reserve rate. They aren't responsible for the shitty system they inherited.

[quote]A covid vaccine is not fair to hand out in the future because what about my brother and all the other people who already died of covid?

R22 I understand what you're saying.

R37 Thanks for your response. Your suggestion about forgiving a certain amount or percentage could be acceptable. I just don't want anyone to forgo an education because they can't afford it BUT I don't want to pay for it. I feel selfish holding that thought.

[quote] This was such a bad llama

[quote] A covid vaccine is not fair to hand out in the future because what about my brother and all the other people who already died of covid?

[quote]R22 I understand what you're saying.

You do?!

Equating a plague having a devastating affect on our health and economy and that’s literally killing people and makes no discernible difference whether you agreed to terms of getting it or not with those who have student loans, i.e., money they agreed to pay back and have to pay back?

Student loans were mostly predatory - kids didn't really know what they were signing up for.

And kids had no parents or advisors?

Kids also had no credit so the lender was taking a risk, hence higher interest charges.

r52 what risk? Student loans had no forgiveness. Even if you filed bankruptcy you could not get rid of that debt.

My friend went to a Yale Law School, and ran up $100,000 debt. He had one class left, in order to graduate, but he was afraid to, because then his loans would start to come due. What he did was, first, get sober, then he hired someone to help him negotiate. Yale took 10% of his salary for 10 years, and forgave the remaining balance. We’ve lost touch, but it’s been over 10 years, so I hope he managed to finish. I hate owing money. I don’t know if he ever took that last class.

[quote] I don’t know if he ever took that last class.

If he didn’t he’s an idiot. Spent $100k at Yale and purposely didn’t graduate?

*sniff, sniff*

[quote] R14: Like the Obamas. What took them so long to pay their student loans? Barack's granny was a bank VP and Michelle had a high paying job.

From 2009 until this year, it was more profitable to have money in the stock market than to pay off a loan, if the loan rate is low. My guess.

[quote] what risk? Student loans had no forgiveness. Even if you filed bankruptcy you could not get rid of that debt.

There’s a long line between not getting paid back and bankruptcy.

Delinquencies, charge-offs, selling the debt to a collection agency all takes money.

Think of it small: if you ask me to loan you $20 but I’m going to have to chase you down every damn week for the $2 payment until it’s paid off, I want something for that trouble. So I may loan you the $20 with you agreeing to pay back a total of $25 so I’m compensated for the aggravation.

If I’ve never loaned you money before I don’t know if instead of the $2 you’re supposed to pay me back you may pay me $5 a week and be a great borrower. But I won’t take that risk without a history, which you wouldn’t have.

I went to grad school, and got loans. I graduated, and signed off on my loan repayment plan. Later. I got a letter increasing the loan amount and repayment plan. I called, but the loan person treated me like a deadbeat and wouldn’t listen. I discovered that there was more money in my “loan account”, for the next semester. I took the money. Then later, they wanted that money back, and I told them they previously insisted that I take it. (It was at a low interest rate). They let me keep it. I paid it off when I bought my house.

Why should they be forgiven. Today's kids should be taught responsibility. If you sign your name to a loan paper, you are responsible for what you've agreed to. Forgiving them loans just allows them to develop a sense that they can get out of anything. It's the life that the baby boomers led and the mindset needs to be changed. Take some responsibility for yourself.

As a Gen X er, I find the entitlement of Boomers to have found its new home in Gen Z. Me, me, me, gimme, I’m owed.

I teach college math. Too many people get worthless degrees, or, sign up to get a degree that will lead to a job, but then they don't do the work. College is the new high school -- everyone goes, but only some people improve their skills. For many, it's 4 more years of baby-sitting and a make-work program for humanities PhD's.

All loans should be private, and should be able to be absolved by bankruptcy (currently they are not). If that were the case, lenders would only lend to borrowers who could PAY IT BACK.

I have degrees in three engineering disciplines. That said, I can understand getting a four year degree in the humanities. I’m assuming it teaches you how to learn, and enriches your life, by teaching you who Cassandra is, for instance. Never mind that I learned tea out her in high school.

Four years of art, philosophy, logic, English, bliss!

It can’t be free. It has to cost something. Or else, colleges will charge more and more with no limit. I’ve heard that this is why prices have risen like they have for the last couple decades. Also, free college will encourage people to go to school who are not suited for it.

It's a tough call.

I feel bad, there are people my age (30s) who are struggling to pay off almost six figures worth of college debt and can't seem to make a dent in it, and it affects their life choices.

OTOH, my father is very against it. His argument is that he purposely chose a career that allowed him to save money needed to pay for college and graduate school for me and my brother which likely came to around $500K. That's money he could have invested too. So why should people who were less responsible, who didn't work hard or save or who took out loans for private schools they could not afford and then chose careers that did not pay very much, be able to get off scot free.

He actually thinks college should be free, but we should use a model similar to many European countries, where most people don't actually go to college, they go to some sort of trade school, but those who do go to college go for free and thus colleges don't need to factor ability to pay into their admissions decisions.

^^I agree with him on this, things like "Communications" degrees could easily be taught in a year or two at a trade school.

As a centrist, some of you everything free for everyone, really scare me. No wonder the Cubans wouldn't vote for Joe.

Socialism ain't all its cracked up to be kids.

If everyone goes to college and no one pays, a college degree becomes useless.

[quote] No wonder the Cubans wouldn't vote for Joe.

Yet those same voters are certainly happy to use up all sorts of socialist programs and welfare and refugee benefits available to them. Hmmmm.

R66

As a socialist, some of you "I got mine, go fuck yourself" really scare me. No wonder young people wouldn't vote for Trump.

Capitalism ain't all its cracked up to be boomers.

"If everyone goes to college and no one pays, a college degree becomes useless."

"Everyone" is never going to go to college. "No one pays" is also made-up bullshit. Taxation would pay for higher education under the premise that a well-educated populace is a "public good" like well-maintained roadways and clean air & water. Stop making shit up, rich uncle pennybags. Don't you have some slumlord-ing to do somewhere?

Having lived when College (University) was Free here in the UK (they even paid your living costs), the uptake was lower as the places were limited and you needed very good academic qualifications to even get an interview.

It all changed when Polytechnics (trade schools) were allowed to become Universities and the number of places grew exponentially, people who wouldn't have gotten through the door previously could now take a degree course. This was of course impossible for the Government to fund and student loans were introduced.

The maximum debt for a 3 year degree course is £27,000 ($36,000) in total in England & Wales, tuition fees are around half that in Northern Ireland and still free in Scotland.

We now have a highly educated generation of plumbers, nurses and cashiers.

R69

Check out the effects of poor education in the United States and report back here.

Take a tour of Appalachia and check out all the speaking-in-tongues gullible cult-followers who think Trump is their messiah.

Then tell me that higher education isn't a desirable public good that benefits a nation as a whole.

R69

Check out the effects of poor education in the United States and report back here.

Take a tour of Appalachia and check out all the speaking-in-tongues gullible cult-followers who think Trump is their messiah.

Then tell me that higher education isn't a desirable public good that benefits a nation as a whole.

I think there is no easy answer here because we have to many variables.

You have people going to school to get degrees that they don’t need or will not help further their careers.

Then you have people getting useless degrees that do not help them even a job.

Tuition prices are out of control but that is just half of the problem.

Another major issue is how the loan money is spent, young students use loans as a piggy bank to cover living expenses that they could avoid by living at home or just because they want to spend it.

Years ago kids went to local colleges and universities to help keep costs down, they got jobs during summer breaks too. Now kids want to be as far away as possible from home and their limited skills don’t help them while job hunting.

I do not support debt forgiveness because it will not help our economy. Someone is going to pay for that debt in the long run and that is unfair to those who did sacrifice home and business ownership to pay their debts.

Reading replies here it's clear that Americans prefer suffering. Its in their ethos.

R72

"Someone is going to pay for that debt in the long run"

Yeah, RICH people through progressive taxation.

Those are the sweet, helpless lambs that you're advocating for rather than the lower classes.

I’m not for student loan forgiveness since it’s a slap in the face to people who paid their debt off, however, I am for removing interest from the loans.

If anyone should pay up, it is the colleges and universities that "scammed" these people. These institutions should refund part or all of the tuition paid. Otherwise, certainly not the US taxpayer. Many of us figured out how to get a college education without going into hock and figured out how to earn a decent living even if our major wasn't STEM. You took out the loans, you pay them back.

College education tuitions have gone through the roof mainly to pay for the huge increase in administrative positions. Also, Victim Studies departments really need to be defunded.

R73, it is actually about hold adults responsible for their decisions and commitments. The US and Americans are actually quite benevolent, often to our detriment.

Forgive it all as banks and gov worked together to fuck students. I went to Unis in Europe (I'm American) Switzerland and UK so I know what it is to pay fair tuition fees. The USA is a disgrace in this respect.

..holding adults

Nobody forced people to go to university all four years. These people in debt should have went to community college first and then transferred to university for the last two years. But no, they wanted to go to university immediately so they could party as soon as possible. Fuck them having their loans forgiven.

Maybe college professors shouldn't be paid over $400,000 a year for extremely minimal work. Elizabeth Warren I'm looking at you.

It's not rocket science homosexuals.

As college became more accessible to more people, the number of jobs that required a college degree did not increase correspondingly.

Thus college degrees became necessary for jobs that previously did not require one.

This meant that even more people felt it was important to go to college because the non-college jobs were the really awful ones.

To meet this surge, colleges raised prices because they knew demand was there

The market quickly began to make a distinction between the top 50 or so colleges and the rest, hence the massive competition among the 15% to get their kids into those schools

Meanwhile the not-top 50 colleges were pumping out receptionists, realtors, insurance salesmen, retail clerks and other jobs for which an advanced degree and $75K in student loan debt was of no real help.

The solution is to limit the number of students who go to college--maybe 10% to 15% of high school graduates--and let them go to school for free. There can be colleges for dumb rich kids, but the government will not pay their tuition and there won't be loans.

Technical schools (which include coding and similar tech skills) and internship programs will replace the hundreds of colleges and they will soon develop a pecking order--some will be hard to get into, and thus prestigious in their own right, and graduates will earn good salaries without going into debt.

It could happen.

[quote] I think there is no easy answer here because we have to many variables.

Oh, dear!

[quote] should have went to community college first

Oh, DEAR!

[quote] It's not rocket science homosexuals.

Neither is proper punctuation.

What’s a rocket science homosexual?

A gay man who works for NASA.

Duh.

R77 "Also, Victim Studies departments really need to be defunded."

Tucker? Mr. Carlson? Is that you?

I'm assuming that you're referring to departments like Race & Gender Studies departments that were created in the first place due to the massive and objectively obvious neglect of certain populations within the various scholarly disciplines.

It's also freaking HILARIOUS that you think that departments in the humanities receive enough funding to be de-funded in the 1st place. They're something like 90% taught by part-time lecturers who don't make a living wage. So spoiled, right?

But kicking the lower classes in the teeth even more is the typical response by neo-nazi capitalists when they're confronted with inequalities, so this doesn't surprise me.

College is so expensive because every time the government steps in and makes it more attainable, the schools swoop in and eat up that relief. The state schools figure their tuition based upon how much of a loan a student from a middle class family can attain and still squeeze the family to the limit.

I live in georgia and on top of the hope scholarship (which pays 80 or 90 percent of tuition), my daughter also got the Zell Miller which is 100 percent. As a freshman, she was forced to stay on campus and they made as much off room and board as they did tuition which just happened to be slightly above what she qualified for in a loan. Thankfully, she didn't have to take out the loan, but I did sell my motorcycle. This year, she got an additional scholarship and gets money back from the bursars office. It is all a scam.

[quote]Another major issue is how the loan money is spent, young students use loans as a piggy bank to cover living expenses that they could avoid by living at home or just because they want to spend it.

Don't overlook book prices which can be astronomical. They also somehow managed to make it apply to e-books. I'd spend about 500 a semester just for books and by the time I paid $300 for a material sciences book my senior year I didn't even bat an eyelash. Also people go to college where they can get into college and most colleges won't let you live off campus your freshman year so you get stuck paying room & board + food. If your major requires a thesis you may also end up paying money for that.

And no I didn't live near a community college I could go to (there was one but it was only for women at that time) so either way I was going to have to move.

[quote]Years ago kids went to local colleges and universities to help keep costs down, they got jobs during summer breaks too. Now kids want to be as far away as possible from home and their limited skills don’t help them while job hunting.

See, you're making blanket statements that don't apply to everyone. Personally, I had two jobs in college. However, I remember in a sociology class of 100 students a teacher asked everyone to had help from their parents to stand up. Nearly the entire class did. Then she asked for people who didn't to stand up. There were 4 of us including me.

Furthermore, I had a scholarship which required me to maintain a 3.5 or above the entire time I was there. To get into my major I had to have a 3.0. Yes, I managed to do it but just barely.

[quote]The solution is to limit the number of students who go to college--maybe 10% to 15% of high school graduates--and let them go to school for free. There can be colleges for dumb rich kids, but the government will not pay their tuition and there won't be loans. Technical schools (which include coding and similar tech skills)

You should want a smarter population. Why people on Datalounge are against that is beyond me. Also 4 year universities give students a general education before they even begin to work in their majors so even if you don't work in your field you still have to learn something outside of it. You don't get that otherwise.

R89

The ironic thing is that out of decades of social scientific research examining correlates of homophobia, one's level of education is undoubtedly in the top three correlates and can easily be argued to be the #1 strongest correlate. Higher education (even measured year-by-year as opposed to degree completion) is one of the strongest predictors of liberal attitudes in general, but especially about same-gender sexuality.

But of course, the mouth-breathing capitalist cheerleaders on datalounge are mostly concerned about scary taxes cutting into their couture caftan budget. If they could buy personal bubbles of air to float around their heads constantly, I'm sure they would say fuck the poor, let them buy their own air too and advocate against air quality protections.

R89/Everything you just wrote to counter my post is exactly what is wrong with tuition and debt. The decisions taken by higher learning institutions in the last two decades have hurt students.

Book fees are ridiculous and ebooks should have been the answer to keeping costs down, but it didn’t happen.

Schools should not demand that you live on campus, this is an unnecessary expense if you can avoid it.

While most students may claim to have parental support that really varies by student and are not equal, so much for blanket statements.

Right now with COVID raging is the time for change, you can learn remotely in most cases and I hope that leads to driving costs down, but I won’t hold my breath.

Our country is all about screwing us over, no universal healthcare or higher education.

R74 There is no such thing as progressive taxation on the rich, you need to open your rose colored glasses off.

The rich will keep on dodging taxes and corporations will continue to receive tax welfare while the rest of us shoulder the tax burden.

That is the sad truth.

Agree that too many people go to college and the value of a degree has depreciated while the cost has skyrocketed.

Agree that too much money is spent on dorms, stadiums, marketing departments, student centers and athletics.

Agree that we should reduce the bite but not give people a free ride. Allowidischarge in bankruptcy, get rid of interest, indexing aid tie relief to income level and profession. I paid my loan off in ten years, made many sacrifices to do it including not taking a vacation, and don't give a fuck if anonymous posters think it's selfish of me not to want others to retire their debt in one fell swoop. It's called equity. You deserve some relief but some responsibility too.

In the case of my daughter, she is at SCAD, which is in Savanah. The school is downtown and it is a rough area, so requiring them to live on campus freshman year is not that bad of an idea. The campus security measures are extensive and include protected transportation to the grocery and other local destinations. I did like that.

I graduated, went into teaching and then a higher-paying job as a broker, then got sick with something that 16 years later still hasn't been properly diagnosed. Then I was injured in an accident. Everything I paid off toward my loans when I was working full time, plus the income-based repayment I've done for almost a decade, has more than paid off what I borrowed in the 1990s.

The interest rate however has left a balance of $90,000. I only borrowed $37,000.

There must be thousands of people in similar situations. It's stupid and reductive to say that this is just "Millennials choosing the wrong major and being irresponsible," yet that's how Dataloungers always frame it.

Or they say something stupid about "equity" like r92, who clearly doesn't even know what equity is.

[quote]You should want a smarter population. Why people on Datalounge are against that is beyond me.

Because the vast majority of Dataloungers are miserable older men who fall back on fascist fantasies to make themselves feel better. They spend hours on Datalounge detailing how, if they were in charge, they wouldn't allow people to have children unless they were of a certain quality, they would only allow a small fraction of people to get an education, they would force people into homelessness and starvation for making bad decisions like getting an MFA in college, etc.

Very few people here care about what benefits society as a whole. They would much rather post at length about why some guy with tattoos or some lady with a mommy blog should get life sentences for offending their delicate sensibilities, than they would talk about why an educated populace is a benefit to us all.

[quote] The interest rate however has left a balance of $90,000. I only borrowed $37,000.

See now this I find ridiculous and would have NO problem with the feds stepping in and, not paying it off, but telling the lender “yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

[QUOTE] R93 In the case of my daughter, she is at SCAD, which is in Savanah. The school is downtown and it is a rough area, so requiring them to live on campus freshman year is not that bad of an idea. The campus security measures are extensive and include protected transportation to the grocery and other local destinations. I did like that.

R93 I'm shocked, is that acceptable in the US? I've never heard of protected trips to the grocery store in any Country. It sounds like she'd be safer in Afghanistan or Yemen.

Are the authorities addressing the problem? They should either demolish the surrounding area or build a Police Station there.

I don't get the contempt over forgiving student loans. The cost of getting a 4 year degree has skyrocketed in the past 20 years. The quality of education you get from these places has certainly not. You're just accommodating the lenders and keeping curmdurgeon faculty employed.

I’m not that poster, r97, but I think he was implying there’s a shuttle bus that would take the students to and from the stores so they wouldn’t have to walk, which would be more dangerous.

I doubt they’re “protected” in a Secret Service sense of the word.

[quote] I don't get the contempt over forgiving student loans. The cost of getting a 4 year degree has skyrocketed in the past 20 years.

As has housing costs, yet you don’t hear anyone espousing forgiving mortgages.

R99 I'm still not aware of any Country where it is unsafe to walk to the grocery store in daylight?

I've visited a lot of Third World shitholes and if an area became that dangerous the Police presence would soon become overwhelming, usually solving the problem.

R94 this happens all the time. I went to a state school for grad school and worked part-time throughout grad school (had a stipend) but just to survive, took out something like $100-125k over 7 years of grad school. Cost of living was just too high for me to keep up, and tuition kept rising each year, outpacing inflation. At the exact same time, the program subsidizing interest on loans expired in 2010 under Obama, so while I was in school and couldn’t pay interest or loans, my interest started to capitalize at a high 6.5%—thousands of dollars per year. I was also underpaid during my postdoc and couldn’t afford to pay on my loans then either, and watched my interest continue to bloat my loans for another 18 months. By the time I started repaying my loans, they had ballooned to $200k, which is crazy. I only took out $100k-125k and interest made them double before I could even START to pay them back. Now I’m guaranteed to have to pay $300k-$400k or more given that I can’t afford to pay more than the barest minimum of a huge ass loan. More likely, I’ll pay the minimum for 25 years and hopefully the rest will be written off. But in that quarter of a century, I’m crippled with debt. How are student loans companies given SO MUCH power? Why are interest rates so high? And why does the US allow interest to accrue while we’re in school?

Yay capitalism! Meanwhile, as a nation, we blame the borrowers, not the predatory system and the CEOs of the loan servicing companies who make bank off of students. This system always benefits the rich and even better, get the middle class to side with you on this by calling students lazy and irresponsible so that guarantees that no regulations will be changed. Ingenious.

I’ll add that baby boomers live to brag about working while in school and having either no loans or paying the few loans off themselves 30-40 years ago. Yeah—tuition was super cheap back then and an apartment wasn’t as expensive in those days either. Your jobs after graduation also came with pensions and unions; Gen Z and millennials can’t expect to have the same benefits you had. In fact, our economy has added a TON of gig contract jobs with no benefits whatsoever, which make up 1/3 all new jobs, if I recall correctly.

I’ll add that baby boomers live to brag about working while in school and having either no loans or paying the few loans off themselves 30-40 years ago. Yeah—tuition was super cheap back then and an apartment wasn’t as expensive in those days either. Your jobs after graduation also came with pensions and unions; Gen Z and millennials can’t expect to have the same benefits you had. In fact, our economy has added a TON of gig contract jobs with no benefits whatsoever, which make up 1/3 all new jobs, if I recall correctly.

I'm fine w. something. Scrapping the interest, as someone suggested? Some formula connecting the amount forgiven to volunteer work? A flat 30% forgiven? It'd probably be impossible to do, but going forward, restrictions on uses for the money?

By the way, I had some Pell grants and some parental help. I needed those loans, knew a lot of kids who got the 'em mostly to have fun over spring break, buy concert tickets, bags of weed, etc.

For various reasons, mostly suspending payments when I was laid off, subsequently scraping by, I got that shit paid off 16 years after graduating.

I'm not out to see people suffer, but there is middle ground between that and everyone walking away from all of it.

You graduated? From college?

Jesus.

I posted earlier on a different thread. Today's younger generations are getting a raw deal. I'm 57, and probably considered an elder. I went to undergrad school and majored in biochemistry and went on a different path and got an MFA in Film & TV and it took 8 years of college to obtain them. BUT, I did not have the tens of thousands of debt that is saddling today's grads. (I think I owed about $1600.00 to Sallie Mae.)

Since that time, all college Federal student loans was moved off Sallie Mae and now private banksdo the lending for huge profits. I believe this is a gigantic disservice to young adults - to saddle them with this non-discharged debt. This is what our country has come down to.

One idea to remedy the situation is to allow monthly payments to have a ceiling - say of 5% of wages - that is required to pay back the loan. This way, it won't be so high an amount that the student can afford to eat,pay rent etc. We should not allow huge private profits to the fat cats. I don't believe this has ever happened before. If not mistaken, it was that jackass crook retired Supreme Court judge that retired last year. (Forgot his name) and was replaced by Kavanaugh. He also had a son working for Deutsche Bank.

I'm old so I remember when a person worked a full-time summer job (usually at a resort which included meals and a bed). Christmas and Easter breaks were spent working retail. This earned enough to pay for a year's tuition. It was all about work and school. Graduated with no debt from my state university in four years (University of Wisconsin).

Anthony Kennedy.

My cost for room and board and classes was about $1500 per semester in 1978. A friend elsewhere posted his bill from that year, so that the cost. That’s about $6000 today, due to inflation. I went to a state school and it was more than my liberal arts peers because I took engineering classes. Not long before, I understand this state school, UCONN, was free.

Based on this, I do sympathize with today’s students. I’ve heard that the availability of loans & grants has pushed the price up,

[quote] I'm 57, and probably considered an elder.

[quote] I'm 57, and probably considered an elder.

Oh, honey, do you know where you are?

Probably?

Another Eldergay here. I graduated from a state school in 1987. My parents were able to pay my entire costs without any financial assistance. And we weren't rich by any means. Both of my parents worked blue collar post office jobs. Tuition was $16 per credit hour at that time. That would be $38 in today's dollars. I just looked up the current tuition at my school. It's $274 per credit hour. That's seven times the inflation rate. There is no way parents working the kind of jobs my parents had would be able to foot the entire bill today.

r57 except college loans are notorious for lending with zero credit. Because they know that debt can NEVER be discharged. It will follow for life. To the other poster on why the Obamas took forever to pay it off. IF you can afford it, some debt it good. The interest can be lower your taxes (well used to not sure anymore with the 10K cap) - versus making money (stocks, bonds, investments).

[quote] I don't get the contempt over forgiving student loans. The cost of getting a 4 year degree has skyrocketed in the past 20 years.

So has the cost of a Lamborghini. I can’t afford one, so I don’t take out a loan to get one.

R115 But you NEED an education, you don't need a Lamborghini.

R115 wow, if you think an education is a luxury like a Lamborghini....what a telling comparison.

Does student loan forgiveness include loans to go to private universities? It seems like there are huge differences in cost between state schools in your state and private ones.

R116, r117, you don’t NEED to impoverish yourself to get an education, either. State schools are far cheaper. Sure, they may not be Ivy League or where you would WANT to go, but you have to make do.

I attended a local university in the mid 90's. I lived at home with my folks at the time. My 3 main expenses were (approximately) $1,250 per semester, paying on a loan I took out for a computer, and my car payment. I obviously didn't have to pay for "rent", utilities or food, and was under my parent's insurance as well. Yes, I worked 3 part time jobs in the summer - line cook, cashier, bussing tables...

I graduated with no student loan debt aside from some credit card bills I racked up, but there is no way that is possible today for a teenager today in the area I grew up in and at the university I went to right now.

R119 read R102. I went to a state school!!!!

Just fucking pay it off. Hell, we’re so far in debt what does a couple extra trillion mean?

Are student loans for grad school included in this as well?

I shouldn't have used the word "protected" r97, more like accompanied. And the security around the dorms is tight.

R124 Still sounds weird from here in Europe, I've never been afraid to go out alone in any of the 50+ Countries that I've visited. I didn't even find Pietermaritzburg or Pretoria in South Africa particularly intimidating.

I graduated in 2010. Tuition at my alma mater was 32k that year. This year it's 49k

If the planet and my business holds together, I'll be free and clear of my student loans in 3 years. If Biden wants to clear 10K or whatever of that, I'd be enormously grateful. The fact is that the student loan business is extremely predatory and needs extensive reform. You have 17-18 year olds who have never managed a budget signing contracts that tie them down for the rest of their lives and at least for my generation, all I heard in school was "go to college!"

And then you have this bullshit.

Those of you here supporting some form of forgiveness — please stand your ground on this issue. This is a blight on our society and we must fix it. Don’t let the opposers get to you — note that they never ever ever have any hard data to back up their argument. They only words they like are “fair” and “equity” in reference to THEMSELVES.

Young hawt gays, come to Europe, find a nice man from a nice family and marry him. Life in the USA is even more difficult than you realise.

I worked for the US Dept of Education’s Financial Student Aid’s Office of the Ombudsman and my job was to review borrower complaints about their student loans and almost every case involved the increase in their original loan amounts due to a deferment or payment forbearance. Typically they applied for these because they couldn’t find work that paid enough to repay their loans and the interest continued to accrue and was capitalized to the original Liam amount at the end of the deferment or forbearance. I found in researching these complaints that they had unrealistic ideas of what they could do once they completed their programs. A lot of these people were the first in their family to enroll in any program after high school and were naive or purposely mislead about the cost and how they would repay their loan debt. So, yes, cancel loan debt that’s been in the books longer than five years and only if the borrower can prove that repayment would be a burden.

[quote] were naive or purposely mislead

Oh, dear!

[quote]almost every case involved the increase in their original loan amounts due to a deferment or payment forbearance. Typically they applied for these because they couldn’t find work that paid enough to repay their loans

Is it possible they applied for these extensions due to being in school and therefore not having their degree yet, so they can’t pay them back right then?

Serious question, no snark.

^^ far too cumbersome. Just strike it all. You know, like bailing out banks or airlines.

My guess, r125, is that you are not a 100 lb 18 year old girl. This is mainly for the freshmen who are not always worldly when they arrive.

But you may remain SHOCKED!, lol.

R134 Lots of 100lb 18 year old Girls (though at 18 you are legally a Woman here in Europe) backpack all over the World in their gap year, very few come to any harm (they are statistically as safe as at home) and it's usually an overwhelmingly positive experience.

Savannah GA sounds like an Augean Stable.

Every campus has school safety officers. When I went to UCLA, there was an entire police force on campus. You could call them up at any hour and they would come to your location and walk with you to any building on campus or to the parking garages. When I was there in the 90's a lot of shit happened in the parking garages with women being sexually assaulted. It's actually a common thing on most college campuses here in the US.

So yeah, women sometimes need some extra protection because men are Neanderthals.

From the Wall Street Journal today:

The U.S. government stands to lose more than $400 billion from the federal student loan program, an internal analysis shows, approaching the size of losses incurred by banks during the subprime-mortgage crisis. The Education Department, with the help of two private consultants, looked at $1.37 trillion in student loans held by the government at the start of the year. Their conclusion: Borrowers will pay back $935 billion in principal and interest. That would leave taxpayers on the hook for $435 billion, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal....

Continued

The losses are far steeper than prior government projections, which typically measure how much the portfolio will cost the government in the next decade, not the entire life of the loans. Last year the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the student-loan program would cost taxpayers $31.5 billion, including administrative costs.

After decades of no-questions-asked lending, the government is realizing that it has a pile of toxic debt on its books. By comparison, private lenders lost $535 billion on subprime-mortgages during the 2008 financial crisis, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

The effect this time is different. The government, unlike private lenders, can borrow trillions of dollars at low rates to absorb the losses, without causing a panic. But taxpayers will end up paying a price because Congress will have to raise taxes, cut services or increase the deficit to cover the losses.

The absence of a cataclysmic event like the financial crisis is removing the impetus for the federal government to change its lending practices, which analysts said have enabled colleges to raise tuition far above the rate of inflation.

“There’s no market discipline here,” said Constantine Yannelis, a former Treasury Department official in the Obama administration who now teaches at the University of Chicago. “In 2007-2008, we saw a lot of lenders who were making risky bets going under. There’s no force like that in the student-loan market.”

The government lends more than $100 billion each year to students to cover tuition at more than 6,000 colleges and universities. It ignores factors such as credit scores and field of study, and it doesn’t analyze whether students will earn enough after graduating to cover their debt.

“We make no attempt to evaluate the quality of the borrower, the ability to repay, the effectiveness of the loans,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office who now leads the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. “The taxpayer ends up picking up the tab.”

Isn't the current situation with college (University) kind of the ultimate form of Socialism?

You can attend despite any form of Academic ability and It is funded by loans that aren't assessed on ability to repay.

Our old system in the UK used to make much more sense than the current 'College (University) for all' that is now in place.

My plumber nephew has a degree in Geography and his wife (who's now a midwife) has two English degrees and a Masters, his Brother who earns £250,000+ has nothing beyond high school (6th form) but is a stunningly good tech problem solver.

Again, it is the schools that are causing this mess. Even though it is a screwed up model, they should do something like our current medical system. Insurance companies can bargain for breaks because they bring a lot of business to the table. They should do the same thing for colleges. If you get a federally backed student loan then your tuition gets cut down drastically as well as room and board. If the School wants to reap the benefits of the student loan program, they have to agree to more reasonable tuition. Then let the bloated universities tighten their fucking belts.

Is that an original idea?

Universities should be co-signers on their students’ loans.

Everyone is coming up with complicated solutions to the student loan problem. Let's apply apply Occam's Razor and cut to the most direct solution: all loans should be made by private lenders. The debt should be able to be cancelled in the case of bankruptcy, which is not the case currently.

Private lenders will only lend to people who can pay it back. They will do the necessary research, so poor kids with uninformed parents won't take on $100k in debt that can't be paid back. Because the debt can be cancelled by bankruptcy, the lenders must do that research. Students who really can't pay it back can make the difficult, but sometimes necessary, decision to declare bankruptcy.

The current situation is a make-work program for humanities PhD's and college sports coaches -- one of the main reasons unmotivated students go to college but do no work.

The scenario in this link happens quite often which is exactly why this tweet got so much traction.

And yes it is a federal loan and this person has been paying double the payment rate for years.

The problem isn't necessarily that people are trying to get out of paying the obligated amount. The problem is that many end up paying double or triple the amount because regulations surrounding these loans were lax to non-existent up until the last few years when Obama finally decided to do something about it.

Hell, President Barack Obama and Michelle didn't even finish paying off their loans until they were in their 40s and Barack finished right before he was elected to Senate.

Strongly against it. The system does need reform but student loan forgiveness doesn't benefit poor people or moderately well-off people, it is like a large write-off for the upper middle and upper classes since they are the ones who take out most of the loans out there, particuarly for things like law, business and med schoo.

go to college

go to college

go to college

go to college

go to college

go to college

go to college

uuuh why'd you go to college if you wanted electricity AND a roof?? you kids are overeducated and over-gay

Good question. I was lucky in that my parents paid for my education. But now I’m a step parent and my stepson I’m going to one of the most expensive schools in the country. I’ve paid for most of it because I’m a fucking idiot

I’m never getting that money back, but it’s my own fault. So guess I’m in favor of forgiving loans for kids from families under a certain income level.

Oh, and no one appreciates that I’m financing the kid’s education.

I’m against it. It’s unfair that I paid in full and others won’t have to. That simple.

You're a peach R148

Nice angle, R149. Very cutting.

Student loan forgiveness is bailing out private universities. These schools should be forced to reach into their massive endowments and cut their ridiculous administrative costs instead of unloading their problems onto taxpayers. $55,000 a year for a degree is ridiculous. They must be held responsible for price gouging and false advertising to students. They knew that people with arts degrees would not be able to pay back their student loans.

[QUOTE] R147 So guess I’m in favor of forgiving loans for kids from families under a certain income level.

I doubt that 'means tested' forgiveness is on the agenda in the US, it's too close to your weird vision of how 'Socialism ' works.

Why do degrees take four years in the US?

Three years is stretching it out, four is ridiculous.

Forgive! ...Forgive!

“The affluent see Covid as a health problem, while for the working class it’s about economic survival...

“The politicians are even worse. Instead of coming up with a clean Covid bill, Democrats are now trying to pressure Biden into student loan forgiveness.

“Can you believe it? What kind of society thinks it’s ok to ask 12 million people who lost their jobs to Covid to foot the bill for the student loans of the top 40% of earners? Sure, maybe it will accidentally help someone in a food line who dropped out of college. But college-educated Americans are back at work. The Covid recession is over for them. Why are the Democrats designing legislation to help the people who need it least, in the belief that some of the benefits might trickle down to help those who need it most?”

The COVID recession is over? News to me!

The sad reality is that there will be no jobs that over $60,000/year. No matter how much quality education one obtains, there is no there, there. Unless you don't mind working retail and have the most discerning taste.

What about greater subsidies towards more practical degrees/skilled trades like nursing, education, medicine, IT, medical imaging, electrician school etc instead of loan forgiveness? Majoring in the history of Greek theater is nice, but not very practical and I don't see why people who choose fields with low employment should be rewarded financially. Go study those subjects on your own dime, and if you're really that bright then scholarships should suffice.

r156 the covid recession is not over but recovery is happening. Jobless rate has dropped every month over the last 6 months. It may glitch back up due to close downs in places like New York, Cali, Minnesota, etc, but that should be temporary.

As far as Student Loan Forgiveness, the US can't afford it. They took out the loan and must pay it back. I paid mine.

Yet we can afford tax cuts for the rich, aid to other countries and fighter jets that we never use.

This thread is a great example of why America will continue to circle the drain. Do you all realize how astronomically expensive and overpriced college and healthcare are in the United States? Experts have been saying for years the higher ed bubble is going to burst eventually, just like the housing market.

Instead of talking about that, ditzy Americans can only think about how unfair it is that someone else gets their loans forgiven. The elite, who are slowly taking over the world, could give a shit about you "not buying nice things for years" because you paid back your little loans. They are laughing all the way to bank and want you continue having the "crabs in the barrel" syndrome so the generations after you stay poor as well. Meanwhile, the entire US consumer economy that generates jobs and income for you continues to be eaten away because people are in debt to the government.

The problem with the current system is that except for extremely exceptional students, many schools and many degrees are only an option for the wealthy, so that those fields are dominated by people with trust funds.

Also, when we talk about "useless" degrees, it implies that college is some sort of trade school. It is not.

And most parents have little idea of what would be effective "trade" training. We have so many students going into specializations like mathematics, psychology, pre-law, and communications--fields with few job opportunities. Those students might do better in less specialized liberal arts majors that would prepare them for a wide range of career options or for a wider range of graduate study.

Can someone tell us who is going to pay for this Forgiveness?

I just paid off my last installment in June, so I wished the discussion was sooner but overall I think it is a good idea. I also think it should be gradated. Sink thousands into getting a degree in medieval dance? That's on you, but nursing, teaching, and any other area addressing social ills is fine with me.

If we cut back on corporate welfare, that will go far to paying for loan forgiveness.

Plus if all those people are not paying off student loans, that money will be spent. This will move money out of finance into other segments of the economy--and the benefits will trickle up. The revenue on a revitalized economy will make the loan forgiveness program pay for itself.

We tried a similar plan for corporations. Lets try it for people.

[quote]Do you all realize how astronomically expensive and overpriced college and healthcare are in the United States?

This point came to mind reading these responses, specifically those that complain of the high wages paid educational administrators... as though we don't pay healthcare administrators outrageously high wages. Throughout the Democratic primary, the idea of single payer or at least a public option was discussed endlessly, and one Republican critique was that moving to single-payer would wipe out the entire state of Iowa (IIRC) because so many people there work in healthcare administrative positions. Why do we think saving those jobs superior to saving educational administrative positions? Frankly, I think the country would be better served with a broken Iowa and universal healthcare than a rich Iowa and healthcare priced so high that only the rich can afford it.

We love to hash and rehash student loan forgiveness on DL. The last time it came up, I suggested that the government borrow the $trillions needed (since the Federal government can now borrow for 0%) and fund a loan repayment scheme that would allow citizens to apply the forgiveness to any outstanding debt like student loans, mortgages, or long-term debt (I don't think that telling people that "loan forgiveness is coming so go buy a new Mercedes" is a good idea unless you're a car dealership or car manufacturer). Short of outright loan forgiveness, all borrowed money should be treated equally, meaning student loan debt should be as dischargeable as credit card debt (and yes, I know that the bankruptcy laws were re-written in the 90s to make credit card debt largely nondischargeable), business loans, mortgages and the rest. Of course, you can't lose your education like you can lose your house in bankruptcy, so there is that.

[quote] I suggested that the government borrow the $trillions needed (since the Federal government can now borrow for 0%) . . .

R166, the gov't isn't really borrowing money anymore, it's printing it. The gov't issues debt to the Fed, the Fed puts that "asset" on its balance sheet, and hits a computer button to create $. The Fed is part of the govt, so there's no borrowing, just creating more money. If you've saved anything, it becomes worth less every time the govt prints more.

I agree w 151, student loan forgiveness is a bail out to universities that hand out useless degrees -- either frivolous majors, or "C" degrees in seemingly employable majors (business, etc.) where the kids haven't really learned anything, because the college doesn't fail them when they do no work. If they did, the money would stop coming in the door.

Is there another country in the world where you have to go deeply into debt to get a college education?

I don't know 168, but in countries where they have free college, NOT EVERYONE GETS TO GO!

In the UK, you have to pass exams. You don't get to go to college for free to major in Theater Studies. You don't get to go to college for free if you don't have the grades & test scores. You don't get to go to college for free to spend 4 years partying.

Higher ed needs to re-invent itself. Costs for brick and mortar have spiraled out of control. Offer a bunch of classes on-line, and get rid of half the faculty. Stop paying bloated salaries to administrators. But for Gods sake, do NOT forgive student loan debt because people need to have skin in the game. What's next, paying off everyone's car loans?

I read somewhere that there are billions in unspent Covid funds, which Mnuchin is planning to dump back into the general budget before Biden takes office. Well, fuck it... if the money isn't going to help with Covid relief, how about using it to bail out former students with debt. That gives the former students some breathing room to do things like order take-out from struggling restaurants, pay rent, plan a vacation post-Covid, finally save for a down-payment on a house... all activities which will trickle upwards, as someone else remarked. Taxpayers will be rewarded with a booming economy.

I didn't have to take on a lot of debt. So this is not coming from a place of "What about me!??". But I think all the victims of this vicious cycle deserve some type of relief. I would love to see all this debt transferred to the universities that gamed their tuition based upon anticipated financial assistance and maximum contributions from students and their families.

Any relief would need to be even handed. Many people made HUGE sacrifices to pay off their debt, and they should receive relief for what they had to go through. In GA, you get most of your tuition paid for by the lottery if you make decent grades in HS and attend a public college. If you attend a private, you get some assistance, but it is roughly equivalent to what you would have received going to a state school. So you could get $4000 towards a tuition of $50,000. So base the forgiveness based on the expense of a state school education. For students who have already paid their debt, do the same going back a set amount of years and offer it as a tax credit. So if the student decided to pursue a $200,000 degree, they would only be reimbursed for the cost of a state school.

Biden's number of 12,000 isn't quite there and doesn't address students who have already paid off their debt. That amount would have to be determined by the cost of a state school in which the student could have received the in-state rate.

They did enter into a contract and signed it. I feel this is a"catch 22 ".

R170, I am a professor and am teaching remote for the first time.

Students have always complained about online classes. If they were not required to take online credits none of them would do so. I always thought it was just bellyaching. But now that I have worked online I can see that students do not learn as much or as well. Plus the extra fees that students are expected to pay for the "privilege" of studying online are unconscionable.

Plus online classes are usually taught by adjuncts who are always underpaid and abused. And there are complicated intellectual property issue that colleges use bully tactics to get arround.

The system is broke and there is no easy solution. There are some things that just do not respond to the usual marketplace forces and cannot function effectively on the standard business model. We have tried to run education, healthcare, and the arts like ordinary businesses and it has never worked for any of them.

R174 The fact is none of those "businesses" can make a profit, yet they are necessary (yes, including the arts), which is why they need public funding.

Some countries (mostly in Europe) understand this and govern accordingly.

do it, the kids got a terrible education anyway, and it will help them get jobs

Until around 1970, it was illegal for health insurers to be for-profit.

They were all not-for-profit until then.

[quote]The Fed is part of the govt, so there's no borrowing, just creating more money. If you've saved anything, it becomes worth less every time the govt prints more.

I'd rather have the government create some money rather than see the economy collapse under the weight of student (and all) loan debt. Beyond that, we haven't cared about savings in this country for more than 20 years. You used to be able to open a savings account at your loca bank and get at least a 5% return; presently, that rate is less than a quarter percent, and that's for deposits over $100,000. It's another way that regular folks have been screwed by the ultrawealthy.

I support. We need more people who can participate in growing a viable economy in the future.

Perhaps systemic racism?

[quote]We need more people who can participate in growing a viable economy in the future.

The kids going to college ain't gonna do it. They can't multiply decimals, they can't tell you what 10% of 125 is.

Just give every adult citizen $10,000 and call it a day.

OP writes,

[quote]I have such mixed feelings. It took me years to pay off my loan. It was a huge burden at the time...

This is why you should be supportive.

Your experience is what should not have happened.

The nation’s rulers are greedy. They allocate our money toward the wrong things, like endless wars, and don’t where we should—like on health insurance (we need Medicare for All) and education.

I don’t vote for either major political party in part because of this. It is also in part because they’re both scam operations.

Can't be done, because of the very many whose lives and careers were severely affected in paying off their loans. Do they get retroactive relief? I thought not.

To the "Gotta start somewhere" advocates: It can start with lending-law changes. "Forgive" only those loans designated for public colleges and universities. Then allow future student loans only for public institutions.

Nobody has a "right" to have a freely-entered-into loan contract for an exorbitantly-priced private institution of higher learning---the Ivy League; the small elite---"forgiven," aka "paid for by money from the public, including the parents of State School kids and the State School students themselves who might have gone to Harvard had they known their loans would be taken over by the government."

FTS.

We expect 18 year olds, who are told that they need to go to the best school they can, to make financial decisions that will affect them into middle age.

And unlike most bad financial decisions, there is no way to correct it later through legal action or bankruptcy.

That’s because if you go bankrupt they can’t take your education back.

If I spend $100,000 to go to law school and then default on those loans, or go bankrupt, I can still hang a shingle and get clients because I’m still a lawyer. They can’t take that back.

It's great if you were able to pay them off. That means you are doing well. Some of us haven't paid them off and it's hurting us. Please make this happen.

Does any other country outside of the US charge interest on educational loans? Some serious back door deals were made to make sure: 1. Student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, only death, 2. Student loans have fairly high interest rates when you consider that they will compound regularly while a person is in school, 3. Wages can be garnished if you default and your credit ruined. Sweet deal for loan holders, amiright?

In all seriousness, I took out maybe $100-$120k in loans to get through grad school (state school, by the way, not a swanky private school), and I don’t have an issue paying much of that back in principle. What I do think is completely outrageous and unfair is the amount of interest that accrued while I was in school and then doing an underpaid postdoc and the briefly unemployed while finding a job: $80-$100k. That is f’ed up to have your loans double before you can start paying on your loans. This is why we have such massive student loan debt.

All educational loans should be interest free and/or some relief would be nice. Honestly, what would be even better is if all loans are forgiven in 10 years flat for all as long as you’re employed at all, not necessarily just a nonprofit full time. It’s disheartening that I work at a business but can’t get my loans forgiven because it isn’t a nonprofit or I’m not teaching 3 adjunct classes per semester, which I can never be guaranteed by a university. It’s BS.

[quote] (state school, by the way, not a swanky private school),

Yes, we know.

Collectively holding our noses.

[quote] All educational loans should be interest free

Then where is the lender’s incentive to loan you the money?

There has to be some interest. Maybe not a usurious figure, but something.

I don't see why not, R184.

Do something like remove the interest that's accrued on current loans and give those who paid their loans off the interest they paid back, then offer tuition grants to those who never had loans.

R190 I think the govmt should either pay a nominal interest rate for students or the govmt should hold the loans themselves. Why should students have to pay above and beyond the cost of their loans to get an education? This isn’t a car loan or a home loan.

But it’s a loan.

Regardless of what it’s for, I’m the lender giving you money that I won’t have the use of while you have it. Where’s my incentive?

And a car note can be satisfied with repossession of the car; a mortgage foreclosed. Education cannot.

By the way, all non-private educational loans are forgiven after 20 or 25 years of repayment, but you get hit with a huge tax bomb because the forgiven amount is considered income (PSLF is different and does not do this). So say you pay bare minimum on a $100k loan and it balloons over the years because you aren’t even covering interest under your income driven plan. Let’s say the year it’s forgiven your loan is now $200k. Now the govmt considers that as additional income for that year, and it bumps you up to a much higher tax bracket and you may owe something in the realm of $50k-$75k in back taxes.

Why is this even a thing? So going into debt all over again after paying on your loans for 20-25 years? It’s ludicrous.

R186, you do not understand how bankruptcy works. Assets might be liquidated but nothing is "taken back." In fact, if you are filing for bankruptcy, "giving the item back" could be seen as fraud.

When someone goes bankrupt owing for health related debts, funeral related debts, home related debts, among others, they do not even liquidate the assets. (Imagine them digging up grandma's coffin or removing a transplanted lung to "take them back")

Just cap the interest rate at something nominal.

they need to cancel student loan debt. This would help the economy. USA needs to move to a savings, not a debt based economy. It is a positive effect on the economy.

Tuition and fees are too high anyways. People are paying back money that goes to banks, not to academics (science and humanities) anyways. Don't get me start on interest.

Cancel Student Loan Debt.

"Why is this even a thing? So going into debt all over again after paying on your loans for 20-25 years? It’s ludicrous. "

you weren't really "paying" if not covering interest.

For profit schools are the problem. Tuition should be capped.

There are so few for-profit schools. Students are taking out loans at ALL schools.

When I was an undergraduate, loans were not considered financial aid.

Going to grad school many years later, they were considered part of the financial aid package.

"It's telling that most Americans are unwilling to help out millions of teachers, psychologists, and social workers just because a few doctors and lawyers may benefit too."

There is too much hate and disdain in this country...

Barter. Make them side-hustle or volunteer it off.

During the aughts, their Republiparents tucked them into college for 8 years and away from the poor economy- so they wouldn't embarrass Chimp Bush. Now it's time to pay. Somehow.

Cancel it.

As above mentioned, the first step is to tackle the outrageous interest rates. Here's some examples.

A woman borrowed $38,876, she has paid back $31,501 and she owes....$47,023 due to interest rates.

This is evil.

Too bad Turd and Betsy deWetsy couldn't eradicate this problem in four long years. Trump is a genius at finagling his was out of paying loans back.

[quote] Can't be done, because of the very many whose lives and careers were severely affected in paying off their loans. Do they get retroactive relief? I thought not.

[bold]LIFE IS NOT FAIR[/bold]

Exactly, r206, it’s not. And when you sign yourself onto an agreement to repay a loan and don’t bother to do your due diligence with regards to interest, terms of repayment, etc., life can bite you in the ass.

It goes both ways.

An 18 year old who has never had a loan or bought anything on credit probably is not going to be equipped to do due diligence with regards to interest, terms of repayment, etc.,.

And even if he does, he is unlikely to have the knowledge of the world to evaluate what data he does collect.

We are talking about the largest loan one is likely to ever take out. I sure as hell did not know what I was signing on for.

I think it can be widely done but not to the point of zero.

And I would do what other countries do that use their social support economy to pay for college - tie free college to at least two years of public service, whether it be military, Peace Corps, Habitat for Humanity or whatever. (We're already essentially doing it with military service.)

I'm for it if it's closely monitored and based on income to student loan debt rations that are regularly revisited. I'm not for flat out forgiving tens of thousands of dollars up front without further consideration - well, maybe 10k, but not something like 25 or 50k or more.

ratios not rations

R208, that’s why we make 18 the legal age for contracts. If you’re not sure, your parents or advisors should be able to help you. But just like with a car note, you can’t claim ignorance of the terms because you agreed to pay too much.

The interest rates are ridiculous. My mortgage is 3%. There is no reason why rates on student loans are so high. It’s legal loan sharing.

You're mortgage is also backed by an actual asset. Not an individual's potential to earn money. That said, student loan interest rates have been considerably lower at times in the past.

I think the level of loan forgiveness should be weighted with such criteria as types of degrees and ability of borrowers to pay off majority of loans before age 55-60. I don’t think it’s right for people to be paying off student loans at that age when they should be storing up for retirement. Priority should be given to those with degrees in healthcare, sciences, certain academic degrees. I don’t think we shoube paying off someone’s MBA degree.

[quote] You're mortgage

Oh, dear!

Colleges are too expensive. Why do you need a sushi bar and landscaping that looks like it was designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted at Virginia Tech or Texas A and M? The schools are all competing for ridiculous tuitions and providing a superfluous resort experience. It’s expected now, too. The market has to change.

4 year colleges are also overvalued. Not everyone needs to attend one.

R212, a senior in high school does not seem to be equipped to make such a large decision. And unless your parents went to college, you are not likely to get the truth from anyone.

When I was young, my high school, the banks, and every other "knowledgeable" person told my parents and I that the loans would be easy to pay off since I would get a good job with a college degree.

I was too young to know the economy could tank. And my parents believed that a college degree would change everything because that is what they were told.

So I paid for their naiveté.

Unless one goes to a top tier school, it makes absolutely no difference where one does their undergrad. There is no reason to take on a lifetime of debt to finance a degree from a school one cannot afford. That is the conversation people need to have with kids.

I’m all for school choice! Students have a choice to go to school that they will need to pay for. That school could be expensive, have predatory recruiting practices, or lack meaningful accreditation but you know what the most important part is students have a choice!

[quote] every other "knowledgeable" person told my parents and I

Oh, dear!

R220, I think that is only true if you are going to grad school.

And do people even know about grad school when they start college?

What does the government do for people who paid their student loans? Give us a tax break? I am sorry many people pay too much for education, especially degrees that won't pay like they should but it comes back to personal responsibility!

I said this down downthread but it bears repeating: if you have a federal student loan, any interest you have to pay is our federal government directly profiting off you and your labor, without lifting a finger. FUCK CAPITALISM! ✊🏾✊🏽✊✊🏼✊🏿✊🏻

What's with all the "but they're only 18 and don't understand contracts" bullshit. So were all the people who paid their loans off,

I have been hiring and supervising entry level employees for over 30 years. I would say that in the past 10 years the quality of the candidates has been less than impressive. Few have any work history other than a bogus internship that a family friend created for them. Communication skills are lacking. Intellectual curiosity is missing. So when I see someone who comes out of a middle-of-the-road private college with an undergrad degree that cost around a quarter of a million dollars, I deduct points on their judgment when they could get the same education and degree from a state school.

Those who keep spouting the "degrees are the same no matter where you go" needs to wake up. There is a reason programs get ranked high on lists, funded, recognized, etc. They're run by human beings, not some centralized "degree machine" it's not like buying generic vs name brand TP. Some degree programs are rigorous, thorough, esteemed, and are run by the best scholars in their field. They're worth it.

Student loan forgiveness is the right thing to do if it helps the overall economy and helps more people stay in the middle class.

R228 in some cases that is true but in most it is not. A BS in Business Administration from Colgate, Villanova, Muhlenberg or Quinnipiac is no more impressive than one from SUNY, Rutgers or Baruch, for example. It doesn’t make any financial sense to go to a school that is not a top tier school to study something basic when there are equally good, if not better, options at state schools.

Yes, R226, that is how life works. You can have a number of people take a risk. Some will come out okay. Others will not. But that should not minimize the risk.

Most people who drive above the speed limit do not get into an accident. That does not mean there is no risk. It just meant that some came out okay.

We leave it to people who profit from student loans to advise 18 year olds. There is an obvious conflict of interest and they always advise young people to take the risk. That some students come out okay, does not mean this system works.

As a teen I went to college to work in a field that was not a wise choice. It was high prestige so there was a lot of encouragement. What I did not know till graduation was how low the pay was in this high prestige field. This led to disaster.

Years later, I went to grad school. At that point I could do the risk assessment and borrowed wisely.

But why do we expect 18 year olds to make an informed decision with the guidance of bankers and financial aid reps?

But as R229 points out, the real problem is that student loan debt clogs the economy. When so much of income goes to pay student loan debt, it inhibits spending and commerce. It is that simple.

I work for a university and I think the loan system is unethical. However, it impacts everyone because it prevents economic expansion and also keep trained young people without family money out of certain fields. Media and public service serve the wealthy because the debt burden prevent the majority of college graduates living only on their own income from entering those fields.

Won't someone please think of the poor pitiful big banks????

From last summer: As 1 in 5 American adults wonder how to pay off their combined $1.6 trillion in student debt, Sallie Mae executives and sales team members wrestled with a different question: Between meetings, how should they spend their time on their five-day paid trip to the luxury Fairmont resort on Wailea beach in Maui?

Sallie Mae brought more than 100 of its employees to Hawaii in August to celebrate a record year — $5 billion in student loans to 374,000 borrowers.

I think we should bring home economics classes back to high schools.

So learning to cook and sew is going to help how....?

Yes, we need student loan forgiveness. Full stop. It will help all these people with debt and help our economy. FUCK predatory Wall Street.

We help real Americans. We help our American Economy.

Free education would be a punch in the cunt for Betsy Devos. So I am all for it.

Studies show that debt forgiveness helps the economy. IT does NOT hurt it.

Predatory Wall Street has existed for decades. Yet people payed off their loans regardless.

Child Tax Credits aren’t fair to the childless. Why shouldn’t those without children receive a similar credit?

They should!

This bears repeating: we bail out banks, we cut corporate taxes for the rich, but so many people in the middle class will argue tooth and nail “you took out the loan so too bad!” Despite the fact that the interest rate on student loans is high, they can’t be discharged with bankruptcy, and interest accrues for years while students can’t afford to pay them. It’s rigged against borrowers, but sure, keep clinging to your belief that an 18 year old should know better just a generation or two after people went to colleges so cheap that they could buy a house while in school. We do not live in the same world we lived in 30-40 years ago, and tuition & board is exorbitant at state schools now.

" 'Can't be done, because of the very many whose lives and careers were severely affected in paying off their loans. Do they get retroactive relief? I thought not.'

'LIFE IS NOT FAIR.' "

Doesn't that work in reverse too - this generation might need it more than ever, but might not get it.

[quote]Unless one goes to a top tier school, it makes absolutely no difference where one does their undergrad. There is no reason to take on a lifetime of debt to finance a degree from a school one cannot afford.

Absolute bullshit. Also, state schools aren't cheap either. Hell, the one in my home state is 40K now and that doesn't include books and living expenses.

Guess how much it was in the 90s? 20K.

[quote]Those who keep spouting the "degrees are the same no matter where you go" needs to wake up.

People prefer the names that they know. Acting as if someone won't look upon your differently if you went to an Ivy vs. a Community College is absolute nonsense. Companies want that feather in their hat and many people believe that you get a better education at a name school than you would at one that most people don't recognize. I'm not saying that's accurate, I'm saying the people have that bias.

But none of this matters anyway.

46 million Americans have student loans.

1 in 5 default.

Most people owe less than 20K and people under 40 who have been paying their loans for years generally have paid 20% of their yearly income.

Knocking off, at the minimum $10,000 will help MILLIONS of people so they can use that income for something else.

Student loan forgiveness is going to happen and people should just get used to it.

most students pursuing degrees in science can no afford to work part time, that is due to the labs requierements to get the science degree and some programs have also very long thesis

R234, it means all your kids aren't going to be driving Landrovers, Rose.

I graduated in 2010. With luck and hard work, I'm mostly paid off. My alma mater charged 32K my senior year. Now they charge 49K.

R244 this is more applicable for science majors pursuing postgraduate degrees than bachelor’s degrees. I majored in microbiology as undergrad and was able to work part-time. It was when I decided to do another bachelor’s (then master’s and doctorate) in nursing that it was impossible for me to work even part-time. This us because we had labs and clinical hours. That was when my loan amounts escalated because I had to take the maximum amount for living expenses.

A high school senior bound for college is not going to run a thorough cost-benefit analysis of going to college. He’s thinking about freedom from parental control, moving to an exciting new place, drinking, partying and having sex. With all that in mind, his 17/18 year old brain will tell him to sign anything to make all that happen. The lenders know this and they’ve taken full advantage.

Bully for you if you had financial savvy as a teenager or wise parents to guide your decision or even fund your education, but many young people who go to college come from circumstances far different from yours. These hapless young people don’t realize until after graduating from college that they’ve bought something they cannot afford, that it’s not worth what it cost, and that they cannot return it for a refund.

But, this has always been the case. Yes, the cost of college has gone up, but plenty of 18-year olds have been taking out loans for decades and decades.

R249, gone up? Try exploded. The cost of college (and the cost of living in general) has exploded, while wages have put on a few pounds.

Exploded is encompassed by "gone up."

If they can bail out GM and the airlines, they can bail out the students.

END OF DISCUSSION.

[quote] Full stop.

Full fucking eyeroll.

Take that shit back to Twitter.

[quote] most students pursuing degrees in science can no afford to work part time, that is due to the labs requierements to get the science degree and some programs have also very long thesis

Oh fucking dear!

The Republicans are framing it as a "personal responsibility" issue which is simply not true. There are millions of parents out here who are paying off the loans they took out for their kids, who are not able to make payments as high as $700 a month. We're not talking about the MBAs the doctors and the lawyers. We're talking about people who are low or middle income, often minorities, but not all, not even close. And the paper work they signed put them in the shitter. Because tell me what 18 yr old and their parents understand all the fine print and the often excessive interest rates and the sharks out here the predatory lenders? So I think there ought to be some % of loan forgiveness. Whether it's $10,000 or wTF ever, and I think the balance ought to be income based levels of repayment. So if your income is $35,000 you aren't slapped with a $700 a month loan payment.

It should be more than income based, it has to also take into consideration the area you’re living in, so as to account for cost of living. Also if you live with your parents and don’t pay rent, and you’re making a decent salary, you can afford to pay more than someone living on their own in an expensive city. It shouldn’t be generic, across the board loan forgiveness either. I shouldn’t have to pay for your MBA or if you have multiple bachelor’s degrees in liberal art majors.

I shouldn't have to pay for any degrees except my own, liberal arts or not.

R257, you do know that your property taxes go toward the education of other people’s children, don’t you?

I'm personally interested in the student loan forgiveness. Frequent bouts of unemployment and underemployment has had me to go on and off forebearances for years. I wish I could have found and kept steady employment that offered not only cost of living, but allowed me to save and pay off my student loans, but that's not the reality for most students. I would welcome even 50% of my loans forgiven, not even the full amount because I am responsible for paying it off. But the past 10 years have been brutal for me and I've only started to find my financial footing 2 years ago. And I thank GOD I'm gainfully employed during this horrible pandemic. People's lives have been financially ruined, with no options to improve any time soon. so yeah, forgive the student debt. If Congress can save banks, it can save the lives of millions of people who are drowning in debt they had intentions to pay, but life circumstances has prevented us.

I work for a university and few people without college-aged kids truly understand how much tuition has gone up. It is all out of proportion to the cost of living.

And housing near colleges have followed suit. Some even market themselves as "luxury student housing." But only the price is luxury---not the actual amenities of the buildings.

I'm fully in favor of student loan forgiveness. Colleges and lenders need a cold hard reset button.

Colleges and lenders are predators.

YASSSSSS hunty! Loan forbearance extended until February 1, 2021! All signs leading possible debt cancellation by Biden administration

[quote] With all that in mind, his 17/18 year old brain will tell him to sign anything to make all that happen.

Kids aren't old enough to drink until they're 21 here but they can take out thousands and thousands of dollars of school loans in the period leading up to it and are expected to understand the gravity of what they're doing.

This all reminds me of back when I was in college my University had a big movement to ban credit card companies from campus. They used to offer you free things if you'd sign up for a card that they knew you'd use and then possibly have issues paying back. On a Saturday or at any even they always had booths set up with free gifts if you'd sign up for a card. It was predatory. They knew what they were doing.

Now the problem is that even many of the formerly cheapest universities & state schools are charging absorbent fees for attendance.

I remember when I was 20 years old. I went into my bank to get new checks and got talked into opening a whole new account. And then my rent bounced because my money was in the wrong account. Almost nobody understands money at 18, unless they're running a household in high school for some tragic reason

If you study underwater basket weaving at Mt. Euerka College with a minor in Alsatian studies, you should pay every last mother fucking dime! Stupid bitch!

So, we're forgiving thousands of loans because "no one understands money at 18?" Whatever.

Cap interest at 2%, extend the grace period from graduation from 6 months to 3 years.

No, R267, its because we set up a debt system that is slowly killing the American economy.

We could have set up a better loan system, but we chose not to and now may have to pay the price.

Americans should not go into debt because they want a formal education. This is a deeply disturbing reality that these whore of the billionaires have inflicted on us. It is called debt peonage. It needs to END!

IMHO most who seek higher education should be smart enough to know the cost/benefit analysis of having to pay for school. The reality is the American system takes advantage of them and the student is left on their own.

I can't believe the support for handouts over this. You bitch whenever other people get welfare.

"We could have set up a better loan system, but we chose not to and now may have to pay the price. "

The people who took out the loans should pay the price like millions before them. Loans aren't legitimate now because the terms suck? We should probably extend relief to everyone with any type of loan whose terms aren't pristine.

It is debt peonage. Also, it a way for the billionaires to control the educational system. Why can't you study African-American history? because a billionaire does not want you to under slavery, and other oppressive labor system (debt peonage? Why can't you study native American art and history? Because a billionaire does not want you to learn about genocide.

It is debt peonage. Also, it a way for the billionaires to control the educational system. Why can't you study African-American history? because a billionaire does not want you to under slavery, and other oppressive labor system (debt peonage? Why can't you study native American art and history? Because a billionaire does not want you to learn about genocide.

I paid all my loans. They need to pay all of their loans. Some of them went to for-profit colleges that screwed them. Those are the people I feel sorry for as they tried to do something to improve themselves. But these for profit university shouldn’t be allowed to exist.

All the elder gays screaming "I paid my way" probably went to school when it cost max 5K a year

R272, no not because the term sucks, but because these loans are trashing our economy.

You need to think about the bigger picture. Savings and home ownership were keystones of our economy. To abandon that in favor of servicing student debt has been a disastrous shift.

We are paying for this one way or the other. We ought to choose the way that will more quickly restore us to economic health.

Manon, take my scars!

R272 Student loans have a high interest rate and uniquely, students can’t afford to pay them for years while in school (so interest accrues while students can’t afford to pay them). Other loans do not work this way because you pay them back immediately month by month. Why in America do we place high interest on loans that can’t be paid back right away and are for education? The loan terms are ridiculous from the start.

And I support welfare, so I have no idea why you think everyone is hypocritical in here.

Forgive and then make all higher education free.

I dont think some people here are really getting it. Loan forgiveness is not about doing kind gestures for ditzy 18 year olds who borrow too much. Loan forgiveness is for freeing up the income of millions of average Americans so they can increase their wealth and put the money back into the economy. The country is essentially shooting itself in the foot by continuing the current student loan debt.

[quote] are charging absorbent fees

Oh, dear!

Part of the collapse of the housing market was due to predatory lending, but also due to people buying more home than they could afford.

Those people didn’t stay in those homes and have their loans forgiven because they didn’t do the simple equations that would’ve let them know they can’t afford a $400,000 house making $12 an hour.

[quote] Why in America do we place high interest on loans that can’t be paid back right away and are for education?

Because the schools want their money right away. The lender gives it immediately to the school and expects to be paid back immediately for the outgo. Knowing, as you say, that most students can’t pay it back immediately is why the interest rate is higher.

If I don’t know you (no credit history of borrowing from me before) and you ask me to loan you $10 and I agree.

You tell me you’ll pay me back next Tuesday when you get paid. Ok, so give me $11 when you pay me then. But if I know you can’t pay me back next Tuesday because you’re not actually getting paid, now I have to wait longer while you’re holding my $10. I may say give me $13 when you finally pay me.

Since the terms can’t change when from the time I give you the $10 (maybe I’m wrong, maybe you will be paid next Tuesday) I have to incorporate that into my initial terms. So I’ll then tell you pay me $12 next Tuesday so I’m covered if I’m right and you’re not getting paid.

r283, 30k in student loans is not comparable to a 400k 30 year mortgage.

If the US government was properly investing in schools and monitoring their expenditures we would not have astronomical student loan debt.

Thank you R285. I was wondering how those two could be compared.

R286, they can be compared to taking out more debt than you can reasonably pay back.

R285, who has only 30k in student debt? If you read the thread people are talking about having 100,000 or more in some cases.

You can also blame a lot of this on Boomers. Many men went on to college and then grad school to avoid the draft. More women started going to college and grad school as more opportunities opened up in the workplace. All of a sudden a BA or BS degree wasn’t competitive enough. Once grad school was completed it was common to default on loans. That’s why today student loans can’t be discharged if you file for bankruptcy. The system got fucked once and made sure it wouldn’t happen again.

Finally did the math: ~$20k for my bachelor’s (state school, worked during college and got pell grants), ~$40k for master’s (no funding other than loans and part-time job), and ~$80k for doctorate (state school, about 75% funded by assistantships, but living expenses not covered, nor was some tuition at times). By the time I could start paying the loans back, $50k in interest alone had accrued, bumping the loans to $200k. Starting salary when I got out was about $60-70k, which means I’m mostly paying interest and no principal right now.

r287 30k is the average student loan debt in the United States

What is your field r289? Is it typical to get a PhD with no work experience in the field? What’s the starting salary for a Masters degree? Not judging just trying to understand.

Educational Loans for profit are evil. Forgive the interest.

No educational loan should be for profit.

Then was is the incentive to the lender to loan you the money?

r239, they should all be federal, principle only loans. That's the point. Society benefits from a smarter populace as a whole.

No educational loans for profit.

Goes along with no healthcare for profit.

But if they don't charge exorbitant interest, how can they take 100 employees first class to Hawaii?

Crooks ^^

Student Loans are the only loan which incurs absolutely no risk for the lender. Repayment is guaranteed.

On every other loan the lender faces the risk that the borrower can go bankrupt or default. For student loans, the government will pay off any defaulted debt---and Student Loans are unaffected by bankruptcy.!

I am always surprised how many people do not know this.

All for it. Expecting 200k+ forgiveness in exactly 21 months.

Professional degree and working in the public sector. We qualify for loan forgiveness for public sector employees after 10 years of payments, with forgiven amount not taxable as income. I'll spare you the details but part of a small subset of government employees who will save big bucks as a result.

Basically every VA doctor under 45 is probably on this track as well and they will likely have 300-500k of debt forgiven.

I have no qualms about the American taxpayer footing my debt. We all pay taxes for so much stupid shit its unbelieavable. At least we have contributed someback to our dysfunctional government organizations and ungrateful public.

Lest you judge us, we are no different than you all pining for your second $1,200 check from the government teat.

FWIW, the same bill that got you your measly $1,200 has suspended our loan payments for a year. $15,000 easily saved since March.

“Measly $1200” “Ungrateful Public”

I can get the dysfunctional government. But I’m sure if your “public” could hear this, it would not be any more grateful.

Grateful for what, anyway?

R298, I don’t begrudge you at all. You are fulfilling a need. If you had a graduate degree in a bullshit major, ie, communications that cost you upwards of $100k and you came out of it not knowing how to structure a sentence or use an apostrophe, taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill.

I think people also need to get a better perspective on how much debt per person we are talking about. Everyone did not take out huge mortgaged sized student loans to be doctors. From what Ive been reading online, lawmakers are mostly pushing for forgiveness of up to 50k for all borrowers. Most borrowers have less than that, as the average is 30k. To me that is totally reasonable and very beneficial for the economy for the government to absolve that debt in post COVID times when people need money to pay bills.

[quote] Student Loans are the only loan which incurs absolutely no risk for the lender. Repayment is guaranteed.

While there may be minimal risk (it’s not no risk because the Feds could easily change the rules and not pay) you still have to factor in the use of the money.

If I have $100 to loan to somebody, why would I loan it to Billy for no interest when I can lend it to Bobby for an interest loan? Now I’m making something while I don’t have the use of that $100, which is why I’m in business.

Much like a free lunch, there is no free money either.

R265, was that Wells Fargo? They did that to me, too.

R291 Psychology. When I attended grad school, i don’t think I realized how little respected my field was once you get out and start working with a doctorate. I practiced clinical work during most of grad school (~5 of the 7 years of masters and doctorate) but it’s all unpaid hours that go toward licensure. Free labor. Did an underpaid postdoc/training year after that because even after graduation you need more practice hours to get licensed, but couldn’t afford to pay my loans at all during that year and thereafter was unemployed for 4-6 months before finding gainful employment. The job situation was far more bleak than I anticipated with all the optimistic “jobs are expected to expand by x percent in your field” in the abstract while the actual market is less rosy.

R304 Oops, I am R289

Psychology, communications, math, law (depending on the school) are degrees that prepare you for years of job search before you decide to switch to another field.

" Student Loans are the only loan which incurs absolutely no risk for the lender. Repayment is guaranteed.

On every other loan the lender faces the risk that the borrower can go bankrupt or default. For student loans, the government will pay off any defaulted debt---and Student Loans are unaffected by bankruptcy.!"

That's not true for all student loans - only federally backed student loans. Not all student loans are federally backed.

Holy shit. This was a long read but had a ton of insight & examples. It's sick. I said this upthread & I'll say it again: if you have a federal student loan, our government is directly profiting off you. As another poster said, it is debt peonage.

[quote] YASSSSSS hunty! Loan forbearance extended until February 1, 2021! All signs leading possible debt cancellation by Biden administration

Cancellation is a non-starter. Lenders MUST be repaid. Government guarantee of repayment is insufficient to preserve availability of student loans.

Student loan payments -- principal and interest -- should be tax deductible. Or government can offer payment subsidies to people who pay. Cancellation of student loan debt is at odds with the foundational values of our country. Student loans are not compulsory. Collectively we already pay the cost of people blithely walking away from their obligations. Debt cancellation only makes it worse for the rest of us, and will shut off the valve of student loan assistance to future generations who are deserving.

It's people like Dump and his Deplorables who believe they do not have to honor obligations to repay -- or cheat others.

R309 what a fucking joke. Cancelling student debt is unAmerican? But bailing out billionaires and industries...A-OK. And as for those precious future generations you're so concerned about, more and more people are putting off having kids because they can't afford it...and the planet is going to shit.

As for taxes, the cap on the amount of interest you can write off is $2,500. That's a pittance.

R310 yep—paid like 9k in Interest alone and could only claim a paltry $2,500 last year. Lost money that went nowhere and couldn’t even be claimed on my taxes.

R311 but the baaaaaaaanks! I've dug myself up to the point where I'm mostly paying principal, but I've been there sister

My ex was a big snob about education and what degrees people had. He had a Masters Degree in Music. He was totally verklempt when his student loans came due. I only graduated with an Associates Degree, but my buying power far outweighed his when you factored in his student loan payments. He never found a job in his field and went back to school because they couldn’t come after him for payments as long as he wascontinuing his education or some BS.

R313 that's another thing. You get a grace period of 6 months after graduation before they start calling. 6 months. How many people have a great job 6 months out of school?

University is free here in Norway. Many people still have a student loan because they live away from home. But the education itself is free.

[quote] As for taxes, the cap on the amount of interest you can write off is $2,500. That's a pittance.

R310, I am similarly outraged by the bail out of corporations and billionaires.

However, student loans are more ubiquitous -- and vitally important to enable access to higher education for those of us who are NOT rich. I would propose raising the cap on the annual student loan tax deduction to something like $25,000 AND allowing deduction for the principal as well as interest. As such, if you pay $1000 a month in student loans, you would reduce your taxable income by up to $12,000 each year -- that's huge.

I also think more students and their parents should set a budget cap that includes living expenses. Figure out what the monthly loan repayment will be and how realistic it will be to pay it off. Far too many people put more weight on the atmosphere, name brand. and location rather than the cost and value of the degree. I would not be willing to pay or set my kid up for a lifetime of debt to go to a school like Dennison or Ithaca because they “felt at home” on campus or some such bullshit. Off to a state school with them.

[quote]that's another thing. You get a grace period of 6 months after graduation before they start calling. 6 months. How many people have a great job 6 months out of school?

Some Datalounge threads are about being unemployed for years. Can’t find a job for years.

I'm in favor of it, simply because the quality of education you get from a university these days isn't worth the cost. Paying off debt is important, but this feels like the Lemon Law when buying a car, only it's a degree.

Forgiving student loans would benefit wealthier borrowers more than lower and middle income borrowers. I do agree that getting a college education is too expensive for many. One thing that is coming out of Covid is a shot in the arm for online education. Maybe that will make an impact on college education costs.

[quote]Forgiving student loans would benefit wealthier borrowers more than lower and middle income borrowers.

How?

Meanwhile, the wealthy get to write off their yachts...

Whew.

[R321] The upper middle class and wealthy have the most loans so they would receive the most from this bailout.

If that's true, I would support means testing for any consequential loan forgiveness.

The majority of Dataloungers have no children or are barren so they really have no idea how much college costs now or the rates family's are suckered into.

Student loan forgiveness is an incredibly regressive policy. Only 35% of the population goes to university, and they earn significantly more than people without a college degree. Yet the poor people are being asked to subsidize the 35% who went to college. Really unfair.

Why not just give every adult $10,000 and be done with it?

My ex used student loans to travel across Europe at 20...

[quote] Cancellation of student loan debt is at odds with the foundational values of our country.

You do realize that "interest rates" as we know them didn't exist back when this country was founded, right? Some leaders in history even outright banned them! Things changed in the early 1900s and again in the late 1970s even removing caps on them in many places!

See, it's not just about people paying back what they borrow it's about people having to pay back what they borrow with absorbent interest rates because lenders saw an opportunity and they exploited it. If it was as simple as, here's XYZ amount of dollars so pay XYZ amount of dollars back millions of people would not have college debt.

So "foundational values of our country" be damned, they had no concept at all of what people are going through today!

Or that there'd be guns that could shoot 500 to 1000 rounds a minute but that's another issue.

[quote] Only 35% of the population goes to university, and they earn significantly more than people without a college degree

Your facts are misleading.

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, last year for instance, 66.2 percent of 2019 high school graduates between the ages of 16 to 24 were enrolled in colleges or universities. This does not include anyone above those ages who are also attending colleges or universities.

44.7 million people in the US currently have student loans.

What are exorbitant loan rates? The only loans I have ever had are student loans, so I thought the 4.3% was reasonable. Is that exorbitant compared to other loans?

[quote] The majority of Dataloungers have no children or are barren

How very DARE you.

Why I’m as fertile as the Napa Valley.

[quote] See, it's not just about people paying back what they borrow it's about people having to pay back what they borrow with absorbent interest rates because lenders saw an opportunity and they exploited it.

And yet on every loan document these interest rates were spelled out, including the payment due, how much the money will cost and how long it will take to repay.

If you go for a car note and they say “your interest rate is going to be 20%,” you can say “fuck outta here, I’m not buying the car then.” Or you can say gibsmedats.

They said gibsmedats.

[quote]What are exorbitant loan rates? The only loans I have ever had are student loans, so I thought the 4.3% was reasonable. Is that exorbitant compared to other loans?

It wasn't always 4.3% and it hasn't stayed that way for student loans. You got them at the right time. That number has been in flux for years.

In the early 90s and late 80s they could be as high as 10%. Then from 91-92 they could be about 7.46%. In the mid-90s finally Congress came up with a formula to determine the rate: what it costs the treasury to borrow + 1%. So they were actually about 6+/-% but then they went up again to 7.46+/-% until Congress stepped in again and knocked them back down to 5.99%.

But guess what happened in the late 00s! The rates went back up again from a low of 4.06% in 2003 to 6.8% from 2006 to 2008(ish). Then it went down and up and down and up and down. None of this relates to Private loans or loan services you might transfer your loans to after college that may have other interest rates AND occasionally carry a penalty for late payments that will see your interest skyrocket if you miss a few.

Now add into that the fact that while student loan rates have been changing, so has the cost of college. According to CNBC and other sources, college tuition has gone up about 25% in the past 10 years for both state and private colleges.

To be fair: While I think people need a break I'd be with the plan that mentioned that they should just eliminate interest for student loans and allow you to claim more than 2.5K in deductions based upon what you paid. They should also have some ability for people who have already paid an insane amount of interest to get relief. If you've already paid back the amount of your student loan and you're still paying it thanks to interest, help those people.

R332 Actually, that's not true.

I have student loans and the documentation is not nearly as explicit as car loans, which give you a precise monthly payment in one document. I've also had several car loans and a mortgage.

Student loans are issued every semester/quarter depending on the institution. They usually consist of several types of loans, all with varying interest rates and interest compounding.

Not ONCE during one's academic career is a final payment disclosed. There are actually several ways of calculating a monthly payment when repayment begins, but that is at the end of it all and is dependent on your repayment plan (of which there are about half a dozen or so) and income.

Also, student loans are given to students whose future earnins are very much undetermined and very much individual-specific.

My point is, its not like a car loan or even a mortgage.

It is a cluster.

[quote]And yet on every loan document these interest rates were spelled out, including the payment due, how much the money will cost and how long it will take to repay.

That is absolutely not how it works. When was the last time you even applied for a student loan?

You fill out your FAFSA. You apply to schools. You get a print out of what each school will do for you which includes grants and loans all lumped together. You accept admission at a school and get a semester bill from the student BURSAR that tells you whether everything is covered for the semester since your loan money goes directly to the school without a hitch in most cases.

It will say, you owe zero or you've overpaid by XYZ which means you'll get that refund the first day of school so you can use that for books. If you have requirements for certain scholarships you will get that documentation but really it just spells out what you must do to keep it. I had one for 4 years that would send me a document every year reminding me to maintain a 3.0 or I'd lose it.

THE END.

There's no complicated documentation that goes along with it unless you go private in which case you'll deal directly with the financial institution.

[quote] There's no complicated documentation

Gee, that’s odd, because if you read the posts here most of the arguments are they don’t know what they’re signing, or they had no one to advise them before they signed. Now we’re saying there’s no documentation?

R336, I am surprised you are having trouble understanding this.

18-year-olds do not know what they are signing in part because the documentation is unclear. Perhaps if there were clearer documentation (as in a car loan), they might actually know what they are signing--or could find an adult unaffiliated with the lender or university who could explain the loan to them.

I had student loans in the 80s and in the late 90s when I attended grad school. In the 90s the loan contract was one page long. It did not give any info on paying off the loan, what the monthly payment would be and how long it would take to pay off.

I tried to figure that out myself, but I was way off in my calculations.

You just made my point for me, r337.

R335’s contention was there is no complicated documentation. I refuted that by saying people here are saying there is and there is no one to advise them on it. And then you come along and say,

[quote] 18-year-olds do not know what they are signing in part because the documentation is unclear. Perhaps if there were clearer documentation (as in a car loan), they might actually know what they are signing--or could find an adult unaffiliated with the lender or university who could explain the loan to them.

R338, perhaps we are unclear because you do not know the student loan system.

A student fills out a FAFSA, which is a complicated document. They receive the schools student aid package, which is also rather complex.

Usually attached is a loan form that requires a signature. The loan document is usually the simplest thing the student has to deal with. I can tell you that applying is complicated. You are asked to apply for loans without being given information about the loans. Then you are given a loan contract which is confusing because it contains almost no information. Certainly no information about repayment terms.

Some of the process is confusing because the documents are complex. Some are confusing because it is so simple that it omits basic info.

I remember asking people in my office (we were all in our 30s) for advice and since we were New Yorkers none of us had ever had a car loan or a mortgage. All we had were student loans and never realized that other kind of loans provide that sort of info.

I don't know what an 18-year-old would make of it.

I went to law school after 30 and was financially responsible by then (my late teens and 20s saw a lot of [now gone] credit card debt).

It was surprisingly scary how easily once could get a student loan. Mine went into the multiple six digits and I all had to do was fill out a form online at the beginning and hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt came just like that. No meetings in person, no substantial documentation on finances needed (again, I had a lot of credit card debt), no follow-up whatsoever. Money literally flowed in for three years without discussion of payment.

You do sign a master promissory note at the beginning but it is all legalese. No breakdown like car notes or mortgages, in large part because unlike those loans which have a fixed loan amount at the beginning, student loans just grow as one's education continues. They are dictated by how long one stays in school (at public universities a 4-year degree can easily turn into 5 even 6 because course offerings are limited and required courses can't all be fulfilled in 4 years). Tuition and cost of living expenses only increase every year, as does the loan amount. Yet again, no real formality to get those tens/hundreds of thousands flowing.

Contrary to what one poster above believes, no a "final payment" is never disclosed at the beginning or anywhere in between (again the final loan amount is what determines that payment). Six months after graduation your grace periods end and by then you are supposed to have navigated (by now) at least 5 different options of payment plans with literally no guidance but whatever interpretation one makes of the different options on their own. If one is at a private school, you may get some guidance, but not much. Student loan officers are there mainly to make sure the school gets its money and direct you to studentaid.gov, the central processing point for student loans. Mind you these officers are effectively paper pushers probably making $45,000 (if that). Not financial gurus by any stretch of the imagination.

Based on the retirement/investments/savings threads on DL, the collective financial savvy of posters would indicate most here would have no idea of how to navigate the process in a mindful way. Most would likely do what most recent grads do and sign up for the lowest monthly payment plan (which for most results in the most interest for the entire loan repayment) and thus indenture themselves to student loan debt for 20 years or so.

It's also easy to go the forbearance route for an extended amount of time, making no payments with literally no repercussions (unlike your car loan or mortgage where you car/house can be repo'd).

Many DLers can't even figure out how to save much less plan their retirement. So they should save their judgment.

Student loans are easily on the predatory end and the overbloated academic institutions are the predator. Most students sign up for these loans 1) barely legal 2) naive and 3) well-meaning.

Absolutely in support of loan forgiveness, on a graduated scale, however.

I think tuition should be cheaper.

My student loans were such a debacle. I didn't borrow much - about $20,000 for 6 years of study at a top-25 university. I had a stipend for grad school, but it didn't pay enough to cover my minimal living expenses.

It wasn't until the last semester of grad school that the student loan officer called me into his office and told me that they were required to notify me that the school's default rate was high, and that they were required to provide me with a course on student loan repayment, which I did. It was all personal responsibility shit. There was no discussion of various programs to help pay, and there was no discussion of how financing worked, etc.

Sure enough, the economy was shitty and I barely managed to pay my loans most months. Within a year I was out of deferment months. A few months after that, my employer was implicated in a Medicare fraud scheme and the agency was dissolved. I couldn't find work for 2 years after that.

Living with a friend, the collections agents would call me and tell me that I should ask somebody else to pay my loans. They called every single day in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Then I found out I was being denied jobs because of the bad credit from not paying my loans because I had no job.

Then I got sick. Surprised? This was pre-Obamacare, so you can imagine the medical debt I had. In 2008 I had a last chance to get a good job with the State of California. It was a long and rigorous application and interview process that was supposedly objectively scored. I did well and was told to expect an offer letter in the mail. But you know, it was 2008 so there was no offer, only a letter that they were sorry they couldn't extend an offer because CA froze state employment.

Then I became homeless. With over $400,000 in mostly medical debt I filed bankruptcy. I included my student loans, which were about $30K by that time. I filed pauper status. The BK judge said she wouldn't consider discharging my student loans unless I hired an attorney. Attorneys for BK in process started at about $3K. The judge was kind enough to issue an order requiring the IRS and student loan sharks to not garnish my paltry tax refund from work that past year.

When I got a job again, it wasn't over.

R342 continued

The student loan people wouldn't let me merely make payments, which I was doing. They demanded I pay up all prior unpaid debt, interest and fees, and make monthly payments on top of that.

Within 60 days, student loan whores had obtained a garnishment order and now I was paying 20% of my income for student loans. And guess what? Under the garnishment order, none of the money except a very tiny amount, and I mean less than $20 a month, went to pay the actual loan. All the money I paid went for fees related to the garnishment and collections' processes.

When Obama became president, things started getting better. He issued an order requiring all people who wanted one, regardless of loan status, to be placed in an income-based repayment plan. But my loan servicer refused to do this. They would hang up on me, say they'd call back, etc. I sent them a registered letter that was returned to me "refused by recipient."

And when Pocahontas became Czarina of consumer finance, I sent her a letter telling her exactly what I'd endured. She actually provided me some help. My loans were moved to a new refinancer, and I was given a fair monthly payment.

After all this, some 20 years after the loans, I still owe about $15,000 on that original loan. I estimate I've paid over $60,000 over that time.

No, a debt is a debt. You wanted a degree.now pay for it.

If you default on your loans, there is a student loan rehabilitation program you can enter to climb out of the default status (you make nine months of payments at an agreed-upon rate to the debt collectors, then the loan goes to a normal servicer, with the extra fees supposedly wiped out, and you can apply for IBR or whatever). But there are three problems with the program: 1) I would bet that most former students have never heard of it. I heard from a friend, otherwise I wouldn't have known about it; 2) you have to have the personality who can deal with debt collectors. You can't deal directly with the government, you have to deal with the debt collectors, who don't want to hear that you can only pay a low amount. If you are stubborn and insanely patient, sending documentation over and over, you can get through the process, but if you are an introvert, it's a fucking emotional nightmare to deal with bullying debt collectors; 3) once you climb out of default and back into grace, if you are late with one fucking loan payment, all of the fees that were supposedly wiped out are immediately put back into place. That information won't be told to you up-front, presumably it's buried somewhere in the fine print. I would assume that everyone has at least one late payment at one point or another, so it's basically a sham. Or perhaps a better way of looking at it is an adhesion contract - there's no alternative, so you are up shit's creek. Come to think of it, I'm surprised there hasn't been a class action of the lack of disclosure on the fees.

R30 "You should have chose wisely." Oh, dear. This goes to show the problem with educating yourself *just* up to your means.

I support the concept, particularly in an amount that would spread basic relief to the most people (e.g., 10K or 20K, perhaps a bit more).

Every f’ing year, I have to recertify my income for income driven repayment and EVERY year, including this year, for 3 years in a row, FedLoan says “we rejected your recertification because of lack of proof of income.” In a single PDF I combine and upload all payment stubs, income sheets, business expense sheets, spouse’s income paystub, and EVERY year they just summarily reject it. I have to call them every year and complain and they say “oh I don’t know why it was rejected, the info is all here.” Every year.

And this is the company that is supposed to be managing my loans and handling PSLF? FedLoan is notorious for misdirecting clients and providing wrong info, ignoring complaints, etc. but we have no choice but to trust them with my loans if I ever want them forgiven.

They’ve also undercounted them number of payments that qualify toward PSLF.

There needs to be much stricter oversight over these gargantuan loan servicing companies that are so big they don’t give a shit about customer service or providing accurate info to loan holders.

YASSSSSSSSSSSSS! 💃🏽

It’s an obligation, just like a car loan or a mortgage. If someone chooses some useless degree like communications or gender studies or any of the dozens of other degrees that aren’t going to get you a job, than that’s your issue. You made the bed, sleep in it and pay your bills. So sick of snowflakes that think everything should be free and who believe it’s always somebody else’s fault. Get a job, pay your bills, and shut up.

University of Texas is over $50k per year for out of state students. I graduated in 1989 and I don’t think semester hours were ever higher than $16/hour and everyone was outraged at that price jump.

I feel like you guys are the ones who would have been screaming about killing your adult children if you were alive when abortion was made legal.

"Well I had to have mine so can I kill him now at 26?"

Get over it already. Stop acting like because you had it shitty it must remain shitty for everyone.

r350 student loan debt is not just about people who get useless degrees. Expand your perspective on the issue. China is laughing all the way to the bank, meanwhile we in the United States want each other to be in debt to our government because of "obligation". There are MILLIONS of Americans with student loan debt, working in their respective fields with full careers, families to raise, mortgages to pay, etc. There are nurses out there on the front lines with student loan debt. COVID has cut into people's pockets all over the country and reducing student loan debt is an easy way to leverage the entire United States economy post COVID. That means more money in everyone's pockets, including your own.

Bad idea for Democrats politically. It helps the upper middle class more than anyone else. Or at least people with graduate/professional degrees, who are eligible for government loans up to the full cost of attendance. Undergrads are capped at a much lower amount.

Meanwhile the poorly uneducated voters who love Trump (and supposedly vice versa) continue to slip away from us.

College is nothing but a huge money making scam. How many people waste money on a degree to find work that they didn’t even really need? How many people went to college because they knew it would help them to find a job, even though they would still have been able to do said job without that stupid piece of paper? Money should be pumped into primary schooling. Skills should be taught in public schools. College should be more affordable. It’s such nonsense that so many jobs are requiring a degree before they even let you in the door. I have a good job in IT work that I never even went to college for. I’m fortunate that I got in right before my place of employment made degrees mandatory.

Student loan debt is a burden to people even who get jobs after school and make a decent living. The cost of school is too high even for in-demand well-paying jobs.

If teachers, nurses, accountants, etc do not make enough to pay off their student loans in a timely manner do we really want to call those degrees "useless"?

Its not just about making enough to pay off loans either. This is a large portion of people's income that can be put back into the economy and create more jobs.

College is an American passage. It's just what you do and it's what's expected of you. At 18, you go off to college, party your ass off, and learn about life. It's like a dress rehearsal for real life.

Universities, especially higher education, is a major scam. I don’t want student loan forgiveness solely because it means the administrators and useless professors will get to keep charging exorbitant fees. Just makes schools cheaper

Whatever free stuff Biden wants to give out, I am happy to accept. I would love for him to forgive student loans, but pushing them until September is a step. Let's get those $1400 payments fired up.

[quote] dozens of other degrees that aren’t going to get you a job, than that’s your issue.

Oh, DEAR!

How about interest-free loans rather than forgivable loans?

I've got bills

If you went hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt for a specialized degree and all you can get is a job flipping burgers, then you deserve the predicament you are in. I am tired of crying crocodile tears for people who should have known better. We’ve all got problems of our own.

Republiparents tucked their Millennial boonchkins into college for ten years during the aughts to avoid acknowledging Chimp Bush's shit economy. Now the bill is due.

Make their parents pay for it.

Just make the boomers pay and pay dearly. No single generation has done as much to normalize horrific behavior.

r348 - if you are still around, the single PDF is probably not helping your cause. If something like that landed on my desk, I would toss it back like a hot potato.

r355 - Good for you in making it into your job before the college requirement. But that is the culture now. It can make advancement problematic for experience based hires.

r365 its not just about people with "hundreds of thousands of dollars" of student loan debt, as I have said probably a hundred times now. Its the same reason people dont get why people who made 79k in 2020 are getting the same stimulus check as someone who hasn't worked at all in 2020.

The stimulus checks and suspension of student loan payments are not just for people who are struggling to pay their bills. The government needs to people to SPEND money stimulate the economy from going into a post-COVID recession. You need to take the money you were using to make student loan payments and spend it to save businesses and local economies so they dont have to get bailed out like in 2009. The feds found that people making over 80k were saving the money, that's not helping, so those people wont be getting a check.

I guess some of you never took micro and macroeconomics in college? Well I did and aced both. Student loan forgiveness in 2021 is about helping the economy, people need to get all this other conjecture out of their heads.

The economy can be helped without it, Ace.

Get rid of the interest and I would pay off my student loans in full.

This is the avenue people who have large amounts of student loan debt should hitch their wagons to if they want any way out of the hole in the near future.

The Biden administration is trying to persuade the Supreme Court not to take this case, but it's likely that the justices will take it. They are going to need something to help distract the masses from the uproar over overturning Roe v Wade, so this will likely be how they do it. Unlike the Mississippi abortion ban case, which would be explicitly overturning previous court precedent, all that this case does is establish a set, uniform standard for determining how lower courts decide who can discharge their student loan debts in bankruptcy.

Right now, there is a split in the lower courts, where the 2nd circuit is very lenient, while the 5th circuit is extremely strict. The justices opting to lower the standard will lead to more people getting out of their debts via bankruptcy, It will probably stop any further action from elected officials on addressing this issue in congress. It's not an ideal way to eliminate the debt (as bankruptcy itself is very punishing) and it's not really fair to the people who took out loans to try to move upwards in society, only to have this serve as a major setback. However, at least the debt will be gone, as opposed to it lingering over their heads until the day they die.

This seems to be the path forward. I hope, if the justices open the floodgates on this, it will force colleges to lower their costs and force our government to apply stricter standards before allowing people to borrow in the future.

How about Student Loan Condolence?

I am not resuming my payments in September. Fuck that!

Please everyone we have to think of the Big Banks and their Hawaiian vacations!