Naturally conservatives are going to hate this idea, partly because it’s a massive government expense and partly because it’s profoundly unfair. I’m inclined to agree with both of those arguments. In regards to the cost, I think the economics 101 answer to rising college cost is to build more state colleges (increase supply) rather putting the government on the hook to pay outrageous tuitions. And in regards to the fairness, someone who took a huge risk taking out $80k in student loans and someone who took a lesser paying career path to avoid that risk would be in the same financial position after the former’s loans are wiped out, except now that person has a higher earning potential. Sure it would boost the economy, but there are other places we could pump a trillion dollars other than upper middle class college grads who may or may not have made good decisions in the first place.
I think worrying about fairness is generally a waste of time, but considering the price tag, I’m having a hard time seeing how this is a good idea.
It seems as though any time that more money is made available for college through loans, grants, etc. , colleges increase their rates to absorb the increase.
Exactly this. When the Federal Student Loan Program opened the door for more students, colleges saw all that government money out there just waiting for them, and tuitions, fees, textbooks, etc. all went skyrocketing upwards.
There’s nothing more “True Blue U.S. of A.” than grasping at profits.
This is going to piss off a lot of graduates who just finished paying off their loans, as well as many students who scrimped their way, saved or worked their way to get through college without loans.
What next? Paying off everyone’s car notes? Mortgages? Credit card debt? Sheer, unadulterated idiocy. How anyone supports a complete economic moron like this is beyond me.
Probably because they can see other countries providing things like access to higher education and health care and think, “Why can’t the ‘Greatest Country on Earth!!!’ do this too?”
Affordable education is great, but the way that Warren’s proposal is structured will generate resentment. It basically says that if you are someone who graduated with a large student debt and worked, scrimped, and saved many years to pay it off, then you…basically worked that hard for nothing, because if you had just held out and refused to pay, you could have had it forgiven for free down the road when the Warren presidency arrived.
Edit: To be fair, it’s impossible for everyone to get their way, and if something has to be done, it has to be done at a certain point and time (and Warren couldn’t possibly reimburse students who already paid off their loans, unless we are talking some who-knows-how-many-trillions plan.)
And those that are angry and opposed are sending the message that they don’t want our kids to have it any better than we did. If we got screwed by ridiculous student loans, then by god the grandkids should get screwed too!!!
This is how all of your resentful replies to this idea sound to me.
This is also why we can never actually improve things in this country because too many people would be bitter that they didn’t get to take advantage.
Reminds me of this:
“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” —Nelson Henderson.
I do want my children (and grandchildren) to have it better than me. That’s why I don’t want them burdened with these massively expensive pieces of economic idiocy.
So you actually want your kids and grandkids burdened with ever increasing student loan debt? You do know this problem is getting worse over time right? You do realize you are kicking the can down the road and you are screwing over our subsequent generations simply out of spite right? I’m not arguing that this exact plan is perfect or that we should definitely do this, but the attitude of “well I got screwed, so dammit my kids and grandkids had better get screwed just as much!!!” seems abhorrent to me.
I’m good with changing the student loan system, and if we change it being able to pass those changes on to those who have current loans, but that’s a bit different than completely loan forgiveness. I’m not seeing why people SHOULD have their loans forgiven, to be honest. Are they saying they didn’t get value for their money? Why did they stay in the programs then? If they did get value for the money, then why should they get loan forgiveness?
I do think there are some systemic issues with the student loan system as it is, and I think a focus on fixing those issues would be a good thing. This doesn’t seem to be that sort of ‘plan’ though.
Seems to be people are judging on a moral instead of an economic basis. Judging the morality of economic proposals is a mug’s game.
Instead of loan forgiveness, what if it was presented as a middle class tax credit for those who still had student loans? Does that make any difference to people? And would you expect that credit to have a positive economic effect, despite the cost to the federal coffers?
Still ‘unfair’, whatever that means, to people who have already paid theirs off, but in the same way I just missed out on a tax credit for replacing my A/C with a more energy efficient model.
The Civil Rights act was unfair to former slaves who were already dead, but it still was a good idea to try to improve things in the country.
Face it. Anything we do to help this student loan situation is going to necessarily mean that many people are too old to take advantage of it. We can’t have generational resentment prevent us from making positive steps as a society.