I concluded that it will be a resentment based on a false dilemma. There is at least one additional option, that many will realize that having such a burden is more conductive to less people starting new industries or jobs, not only among those 28 years olds, but for the 22 year olds too.
Well your current GOP Secretary of Education wants neither type of institution to face such regulations. So you are out of step with … well everyone. The Trump administration disagrees with you. Liberals disagree with you. Who exactly is it that is pushing this policy you want? Anyone?
Well, I skimmed the paper in your linked article. Basically, the idea seems to be that the Government would take on the $1.4 trillion dollars by repaying the private institutes and that this would increase GDP, supposedly, between approx. $90 billion to $110 billion a year and lower unemployment by .22-.36% annually. There are a lot of assumptions I’m, frankly, not in a position to really talk about implicit in much of the paper. It would push our debt to close to $20 trillion by taking this on, which would increase our payments on the interest to over $400 billion a year or more, and I’m not seeing if they took that into account. They project a higher GDP, but don’t really go into the details of whether that means increased tax revenue or what all that entails.
I suppose it’s the banks or companies making student loans who would lose out and they would be the ones fighting this sort of thing the hardest, but I have to think that there are other catches too, or the projections are overly optimistic. Like I said, I have no issue changing the student loan process, it’s definitely got issues, but I don’t know if the US taking on $1.4 trillion in debt (to start…I presume that, after this we’ll not want to allow kids to start racking up new debt, so we would probably need to fix that too going forward) would really have all the sunny upsides and no downsides as asserted in that paper. I haven’t looked into debunking articles on it or anything, but it seems too good to be true and based on assumptions I’m unsure really hold up. And, frankly, I only skimmed it.
Society has screwed over lots of people in lots of ways. With limited resources, why should we throw all of this money at student loans and not other things? Why not, say, use $125B a year to buy houses for people living in abject poverty? This would be a boon for the economy, and it would help people who have been screwed by society.
I’ve already said I’m not arguing for this plan, I’m just trying to challenge some of the attitudes and reactions I’m seeing to it that seem far too self centered and borne out of spite.
Explaining why it wouldn’t work is a good argument against it.
The fact that somebody else somewhere may benefit, and I can’t because I already went to college isn’t a good argument. It’s basically saying we can’t improve anything for anyone in this country if not 100% of people will see direct benefits from the improvement.
This idea has good roots, but as usual is overly simplistic.
Rather than just dumping 90% of student debt, let’s start with allowing it to be discharged in Chapter 7 bankruptcy, as it was, once upon a time. Or perhaps a special court where the student shows insolvency without actually going thru formal bankruptcy.
Then, let’s crack down on crappy high pressure diploma mills, where a lot of the bad debt originates.
Free College? Ok, let’s us start by making sure that two year colleges across the USA are nearly free, with small fees. In many areas they already are. So a easy, relatively inexpensive change.
Then a Federal scholarship program for those who graduated from a two year college,* but will have issues on paying for the next two years. Before we start writing checks and giving away freebies to someone who may just drop out after their freshman year, lets us see they are committed to a higher education by finishing two years at a community or other 2 year college first.
If it’s truly a good degree with good job prospects, particularly in the current market, I’d hope most of them would be able to find financially-rewarding employment and pay back their loans. Admittedly, starting out tens of thousands of dollars in the hole is not ideal, which is why I encourage the young adults I know to do their best to avoid / minimize student loans, and seek educational opportunities that will enhance their employment prospects.
I think it’s terribly exploitative. The very first thing I said in this thread was:
Well I mentioned in my OP that I generally agree here that worrying about fairness is a waste of time, but I’m less concerned with “I already went to college” fairness than “I couldn’t afford to go to college” fairness. This is a handout to people well-off enough to be able to get into college and get the loans in the first place, and a big FU to poor and working classes who were kept out of college by the same screwed up system. I think the money could be better spent elsewhere, on that stratus of society, and that’s something that concerns me about this plan.
I also think it’s a bandaid but I’ve already said my peace there.
Well, thing is that when one looks at what other nations do, that does not sound as overly optimistic. This also comes by realizing that we do have a raw deal that is a drag on the economy.
While the author is optimistic about this loan crisis to not burst like the housing bubble, I will say here that it was also thought by many economists that housing was not capable of ding so then.
Unless you have some source that supports this claim, I’m inclined to believe that the thing the current GOP Secretary of Education opposed was the unlevel playing field between for-profit and other educational institutions created by the Obama-era rule. Here’s another quote from GIGO’s source:
But they didn’t try to enact these regulations across the board, they want to remove them altogether, so they must not think the regulations are good. Or are you saying that they are working toward the opposite of what they actually want?
“A Pew Research Center survey published Monday revealed voters have grown apart in their support of secondary education since the 2016 presidential election season, when a majority of Democratic and Republican Americans agreed the nation’s universities serve as a benefit for the U.S. Whereas 54 percent of Republicans said “colleges and universities had a positive impact on the way things were going in the country” in 2015, the majority now believe the opposite, with 58 percent saying such institutions negatively impact the state of the union.”
58% of your fellow Republicans think that colleges and universities negatively affect America.
Why are you trying to deny this? That is what seems preposterous. The data is right there.
If you think the past plan was an “effective” one, would you support applying it to public colleges as well? Or, again, is what’s good for the goose in this case not good for the gander?
I suspect they realized there were two possible ways to level the playing field:
repeal the rule
enact the rule for all educational institutions.
Some very basic political calculus probably informed them that #2 would run into a buzz-saw of opposition, largely from Democrats, and wasn’t really viable, so they went with #1.
If the Democrats came back to Secretary DeVos and said, “hey, look, we see your point about the playing field not being level, but we really think these reforms are going to be good for higher education, so we’ll join you in applying them to ALL higher education institutions” I suspect they’d find a delighted ally in Secretary DeVos and the administration.