I might not have used the correct term, but she definitely had some of her tuition remitted because she was on the cross-country team. Call it a scholarship, call it what you want, but the effect is basically the same if it results in reducing her financial burden at the school.
So, they should be in less need of loans in the first place.
Many places do have programs that provide free bus passes to those who need them.
Imagine spending 1.5 trillion dollars on improving public transportation across the U.S. instead of rewarding student debt holders! The difference in real opportunity created would be unfathomably massive.
Is that something that you are actually suggesting we do? Is it the case that you think that we need to spend the money on improving public transport, and so don’t have it for assisting those seeking higher education?
Or is it the case that you actually want to do neither?
I think spending money on expanding intra-urban-area transport so that people without cars can access locations of employment and traffic/emissions are lessened would be a good idea that will pay for itself in the economic benefits created. It would require a lot of political will to avoid getting distracted by shiny but irrelevant projects like inter-city rail and to actually build things rather than get bogged down in years of NIMBY suits, but if such a bill were proposed I would certainly support it.
That’s an argument for free tuition, not repaying loans.
This really is just going in circles here, so this is probably my last response to you unless you have something more substantive to contribute.
Yes, it is an argument for free tuition. However, if you have noticed, we do not have free tuition. Since we do not have free tuition, and instead, have people with student loans, then forgiving at least some of those student loans would have a similar effect to having had free tuition.
As an example, we currently do not have a UHC, and people have massive medical bills due to that. Would you consider a part of a comprehensive UHC plan to help to pay for the bills that people have run up due to us not having one?
Great, I think we should do that, as well as addressing the increasingly unaffordable costs of higher education.
Sure, because they are addressing massive medical bills. That doesn’t mean I would refund the money for every medical bill that everyone has paid for. That’s the failing of this idea, the vast majority of people who take out student loans use them to get an education and then make sufficient money to pay back the loans, there is no additional benefit to society except putting more money in their pockets to spend, just like anyone else who is paying off any kind of loan, or doesn’t have enough money to live. I have no problem with relief for people who cannot afford to pay their student loans.
And surely you would not advocate paying off all student loans without providing free tuition in the future, right? Not suggesting you wouldn’t, just haven’t noticed that aspect being addressed much in the thread.
I’m not sure we need free tuition, since we already have a system where it’s possible to get an education with a reasonable tuition as long as the student is willing to make a few sacrifices. That would be doing something like starting at community college and finishing at state college while working a part-time job and living as cheaply as possible. That will achieve a 4 year degree with less than $50k debt, which is about $500/mo to pay off. It may make sense to have community college be free, but a 4-year degree doesn’t have to be free to be affordable.
I’ve had a few suggestions, and said specifically that college education should be accessible and affordable to everyone.
It may not be addressed all that much in this thread because this thread is about the loans, not the tuition. And a large reason for that is because Biden may be able to discharge federal student loans with an executive order (though that is not a sure thing), but would not be able to provide free tuition in that manner.
In addition to advocating for free tuition at public community colleges and universities, I have also advocated that having student loans forgiven should mean that you pay a higher tax rate for the next 10 years (pro-rated based on how long you’ve been paying on them).
But, lets say that you make college free starting next year. Do you turn to the person who just graduated college and is sitting on $50,000 in debt, and just tell them that it sucks to be them, shoulda waited another few years? That the person who just started will be able to graduate debt free, which not only means that they will be able to start their lives 10 years earlier, but also that they will be able to undercut the wage of the person with a debt payment to make every month.
Yes, I tell them life sucks, just like when every tax advantage I could possibly use was taken away just before I qualified for it. I wouldn’t object to some kind of refund, but how far do you go back with this? What about the people who paid off their loans, do they get repaid for everything they paid? That’s the way life is at times. I would suggest that some relief be provided proportional to future changes to tuition payment. But without future changes to tuition financing any repayment for people who can afford their loans would be incredibly unfair and just create a new generation of debtors.
Also, the following is not about you at all, just seem the best place to say it.
Summary
Hey Discourse, go mind your own fucking business and don’t tell me how many times I replied to anybody and keep your own fucking opinions about what makes a great discussion to yourself.
Have you seen the costs of living, and the general wage of part time workers? You can barely afford to keep a roof over your head with full time.
Tuition is not all that cheap either. The local community college is $168 per credit hour, and requires about 60 credit hours to graduate with an associates, which means about $10,000 total.
The local state university goes up to about $505 a credit hour, which means another $30,000 to complete your last two years.
So, just tuition means you end up with $40,000 in debt. That doesn’t include books, or lab fees or parking fees, or any of the other little things they hit you with that end up adding up to a lot.
That also assumes that all of your credits transfer, not a given, even when you are assured ahead of time that they will.
And that is assuming that you can live on under $10,000 a year while in college, and that those 20 hours that you spend at work do not interfere with your studies, where each professor wants you to spend 20 hours a week on homework.
In an ideal world, were I in charge, yes, they would get some sort of rebate for having paid off their loans.
The difference is, is that they have paid off their loans, they are no longer under the pressure of them. That makes them qualitatively different from those who are still paying on them.
I would consider it similar to being incarcerated for a crime that is no long a crime. If we legalize something, then we should let out the people who were convicted of breaking that law. There’s not as much we can do for those who have already served their time and are now free(other than expunge their record.)
And, as I’ve said, I would be fully behind having as part of a loan forgiveness program putting those who have their loans paid off into a higher tax rate.
This is why we’ll end up going in circle on this. Relieving them of pressure is no more of a benefit to society than relieving the pressure of anyone else’s loans.
The solution cannot be found simply by forgiving existing student loans under an executive order. The solution is to provide both education for lower cost and provide relief for those who have problems paying off their loans. There is no justification for forgiving loans people are capable of repaying, or to create new debtors under this system.
The point of working would be to earn money to reduce the total amount of loans. Every dollar someone makes in their job is a dollar they don’t have to take out in loans. Even if they don’t make enough to fully cover their housing, they will make money to partially cover their housing. And housing can be had cheaply, but it’s going to be a crummy apartment with 2-3 roommates and eating rice, beans, ramen, etc. Whatever state you’re in has tuition higher than mine, but not too much so. So even in your state, a budget 4-year degree can be had in the $50k range. But the other issues about classes transferring and stuff are just issues that take a little bit of work to address. People get $150k+ into debt because they don’t worry about those things to try to save money.
When I went to college I was estranged from my parents and had to pay for everything on on my own. I worked 20 hours a week while in school, worked full time in the summer, ate beans and tortillas, etc. To save money on textbooks, I read them in the library, copied sections I needed, etc. It wasn’t the funnest experience, but it wasn’t terrible and wasn’t an impossible task. And that was back when college was reasonably priced. Now that college is 8-10x more expensive, doing those budget conscious things are even more important. But the unlimited free college money spigot means students don’t need to make the effort and they rack up huge debts.
Or, can’t you see that, now that college is 8-10x more expensive, it does become an impossible task?
I did the same thing as you, but wasn’t as lucky. Even though I went days without sleep, I was always falling behind, both in studies and in rent. Finally, my car broke down, and I missed enough class while I was trying to save up enough to repair it that I just completely lost out, and would have to repeat the semester. That’s when I more or less gave up, and ended up with about $35k in student loans and nothing to show for it. I intended to go back once I got finances straightened out, but that wasn’t something that really ended up happening.
People are there to learn, they are not there to make some sort of masochistic point. If you are in a crummy apartment with faulty heat, with roommates that stay up all hours, eating crap food, never getting any good sleep, and constantly stressed, then you are not going to be able to learn nearly as well.
I think that the effort that students should have to make is that in learning the material, not in demonstrating that they can live in massively impoverished conditions.
And as I’ve said, we should do both.
I don’t know why you keep insisting on going in a circle on this.
I grew up exceedingly poor, got a scholarship and borrowed some money. Made damn sure that the degree I was studying for was marketable and would be able to pay back what I borrowed. The key is marketable degree. When we have foolish folks in charge that are willing to lend 5 to 6 figures in order for someone to spend, on top of the money, 4-6 years of their lives for a degree that has less worth than a skill such as cooking or welding that’s a problem. The problem is further compounded when so-called adults borrow that money and waste it. And these are the young adults we want to vote! They can’t manage their lives but they think they know how to manage a nation’s?
LOL. Exit polls show that more than 50 percent of voters over 65 voted for Trump a few weeks ago. And this is after seeing him in power for four years. You really want to make cracks about age and voter wisdom?