4 ms·
I actually agree with you on this. Despite getting accepted to many top-tier universities (Berkeley, Yale, Rice), I chose to go to an in-state school with a ge
by ryfia 8y ago
I actually agree with you on this.
Despite getting accepted to many top-tier universities (Berkeley, Yale, Rice), I chose to go to an in-state school with a generous scholarship so I could come out of school with very little loans. I sacrificed going to a really great school like Berkeley (and living in California!) so I would save money and not end up in so much debt.
While I fully think that debt is a nondesirable thing to have, and that we do not educate people about debt enough, I don't know if loan forgiveness is the answer. I have personally paid off a close friend's student loans and old medical bills, and guess what? Even after all that she was just as financially irresponsible as before.
As a related situation, I know a few people who come to me asking me for help with rent or medical bills. When I ask them, why don't you have any money, they say it's because their hours were cut, or something else. But when I step back and look at the whole picture, I realize that because they went on an expensive vacation, and went to the bars every other night, and spent lots of money on clothes, that's the real reason they didn't have money. So when they asked me to help pay their rent, they were really asking me to help finance their vacation.
In a similar way, if we (collectively, the taxpayers) pay for the students who can't afford the student loans, we're actually subsidizing whatever the people DID spend their money on, or their choice to go to more expensive schools when less expensive schools are available, perhaps at the cost of those who, like me, chose to save money by going to less expensive schools.
- drcode 8y agoThanks, nice to have a single person agree with me. That said, I also agree that my personal situation (be it through luck or responsible behavior) now makes it possible for me to be generous to others, and I'm certainly happy to pay extra in taxes, to an extent. I guess what bothers me is just this sense of entitlement of people that originated from my same social stratum who now argue "the game was rigged" when I never saw evidence of this. (This annoyance of mine BTW does not transfer to disadvantaged folks who did not come from a middle class background... I agree 100% they got a harder lot in life than many of us and are often right to complain.)
- thrownblown 8y agoi'm ok with student debt amnesty as long as it comes with compulsory civil or military service.
- UncleEntity 8y agoPretty sure they already have that, when I was in the reserves they would have paid down my student loans if I had ever bothered to fill out the paperwork. And a lot of (all?) places have programs where they'll forgive student loans if one stays a teacher for 10 years -- which, as an aside, always boggled my mind that you have to go into major debt to get a public teaching job that pays peanuts but people happily do it.
- troupe 8y agoIt isn't that the game is rigged. It is that it assumes rational actors are making wise decisions about their future. Someone who carefully selects a degree that they know will let them pay back their loans is who the system is designed for. There are a lot of people who aren't behaving that way. The numbers are high enough that this isn't just a matter of some people having some hardship. This a large number of people making very poor decisions.
- awocs 8y agoWhen it comes to society level discussion it seems that it is often assumed that people make irrational decisions. I am not sure that is true. For a lot of people it makes sense to take a chance on something unknown rather than to face likely failure. That is presumably also why they think the game is rigged. Because if you ask the average person who didn't go to college they probably aren't doing particularly well either.
- troupe 8y agoIf you look at the debt people are willing to acquire in pursuit of something like a degree in theater, it is hard to say it is rational behavior. They are taking a chance on something unknown rather than facing likely success with a career path that is in demand.
- vtange 8y agoI did the same, and found out that oddly enough my brother who went to a U.C. ended up getting a bonus state grant that slashed his loan burden lower than mine. In effect, he was entitled to a college with a higher cost than mine. We only found this out by comparing the paperwork into college; my brother didn't pick the U.C. knowing this beforehand. I feel it just sends the wrong message to society if we build these gotchas and loopholes left and right like this to let people make financially bad decisions.