5 ms·

This makes me very angry. I went to college twice, both times I got a federal loan, and both times, through blood sweat and tears, I paid it off myself. Why sho

This makes me very angry. I went to college twice, both times I got a federal loan, and both times, through blood sweat and tears, I paid it off myself. Why should I be penalized for choosing a major that pays, getting a job, and knuckling down to pay these loans? People must be held accountable for their poor decisions, even if it is $100,000 in student loans to get an interdisciplinary degree in religious and women's studies [1] I also take offense to general tone of liberal policy these days of "giving" something away, or making something "free." Someone has to pay for it. There's a lot to be said and agreed upon for the common good, but there's more to be said for just paying your own damn bills and stop waiting for someone else to rescue you. [1]. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loans/29money.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loans/...

bearjaws 7y ago
"If I suffered then everyone must too!!" I didn't get any student loans when I went to college, but I see the economic benefit of freeing up that revenue to be spent else where. This is just an indirect way of saying that turning education into an "investment asset" for banks was a mistake.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  "I paid my bills so everyone must too!". Should we wipe out credit card debt next? Surely that's more of a burden than student loans since you can't defer payment and the interest rate is higher. How about mortgages, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt is definitely "suffering" levels.
  - Simulacra 7y ago
    "In 2 minutes, primary charges will blow base charges and a few square blocks will be reduced to smoldering rubble."
  - bearjaws 7y ago
    You are being disingenuous when comparing spending too much money on your credit card to spending "too much" on education. I put "too much" in quotes because determining what the "right" education to get for the future is impossible. There are some educations that are more reliable (economically) but we have no clue what the job market will look like in 20 years, yet alone 30-40. Also don't even get me started on how we turned a literal requirement to survive (housing) into a "investment" asset (mortgages).
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      Why is that disingenuous? People put food and rent on credit cards all the time, do they not need those things? You need a place to live (as you say) so by your logic we should forgive mortgages right? It's crystal clear right now that "an interdisciplinary degree in religious and women's studies" has little to no economic value. That's always been the case and if you took out a huge loan to get that degree, you made an obviously poor financial decision that you alone should be on the hook for.
    - djrogers 7y ago
      > You are being disingenuous when comparing spending too much money on your credit card to spending "too much" on education. Nothing disinenguous about it when 'student loans' can be used for 10s of thousands of dollars worth of 'cost of living' type expenses. I refuse to take any student debt proposals seriously until someone puts forth one that excludes non-tuition expenses.
- Simulacra 7y ago
  Certainly, but why would you jump to "take from; give to" rather than reforming a system of universities that vastly overcharges for an education - that at best is half-wasted on classes that are forgotten and unnecessary to a major? Would it not be a better use of taxpayer money, time, and policy to reform the university system, the loan system, rather than taking from one and giving to ...yourself? You're not a bank robber are you?!
joshypants 7y ago
You should get a check too. Everyone who paid student loans in the last ~20 years should get some amount of money. We could afford it for less than DOD accounting fraud.
- treis 7y ago
  Why not just a straight refund for all tuition payments in the last 20 years?
  - Simulacra 7y ago
    or 40
    - joshypants 7y ago
      College has gotten a lot more expensive lately. Anecdotally, after the recession my in state tuition doubled because of less funding from the state. I agree it's a great question of what should be done but I'm mostly happy to reframe Sanders' proposal as a minimum. Further reading - I'm a big fan of the schedule idea: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/04/23/providing-reparations-for-victims-of-unfree-college/ https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/04/23/providing-re...
      - djrogers 7y ago
        > Anecdotally, after the recession my in state tuition doubled because of less funding from the state No, your state tuition doubled because of rampant spending increases underwitten by a limiless supply of student loans. Your state may have reduced funding somewhat, but that's not the primary cause of higher tuition. Ask your state school system what it's employee:professor:student ratio is now vs 10 years ago. How many new buildings have been built in the past 10 years? And how do the construction costs compare to those built 20 years ago?
- Simulacra 7y ago
  An interesting position, but why 20 years? How did you decide on twenty years worth of student loans?
bespoke_engnr 7y ago
I respect your comment, and your viewpoint. But I often hear versions of this: "I had it hard, so we shouldn't let these soft youngsters get off any easier." I'm not saying you don't have a point (college education has a cost), but on some level it's really just an argument for never making anything better. I prefer to think, "Are we really so backwards and impoverished as a society that we don't even have the resources to educate our citizens?"
- Macross8299 7y ago
  >"I had it hard, so we shouldn't let these soft youngsters get off any easier." No, they are presumably angry because they are still paying for being responsible enough to pay off their debt in the form of opportunity cost. If they paid 100k off in debt in the past, that's money they don't have now to invest or spend. Also, having taxes imposed on you for something you didn't get to benefit from at all (but easily could've) is pretty angering.
  - bespoke_engnr 7y ago
    Yeah, I totally get the sentiment. It's absolutely valid and reasonable. But at some point we have to get to a place where newcomers to the system start getting a 'better deal' then the people came before them. That's good news! That means the system is improving!
    - Macross8299 7y ago
      Well, the sentiment aside there's also the issue of the fact that you are subsidizing people that made less financially sound decisions and punishing those who made financially responsible decisions. What about the moral hazard? i.e. if two people had identical student loan balances with $500 minimum payment per month and one person decided to pay $1000 monthly to pay it off quickly and the other person paid $500 and YOLO'd the other $500 monthly into instagram vacations, takeout food, Bitcoin at 19k, etc, you are effectively subsidizing the second group of choices.
    - rsj_hn 7y ago
mlevental 7y ago
how are you getting penalized? where is the penalty that you will pay if this legislation goes into effect? were people that died before vaccines penalized in someway once vaccines were discovered? edit: why does it make sense to be angry about this - it's not about you nor affects you except marginally. i will never understand why people get upset about other people getting lucky. like what a waste of a nice day.
- treis 7y ago
  >where is the penalty that you will pay if this legislation goes into effect? Someone has to pay for that $1.6 trillion. So the GP is going to get it twice. First by having to pay off their loans and then again by having to (help) pay them off for everyone else.
Upvoter33 7y ago
I think this response is hugely selfish. I also paid off my own debts. But why does that rule out even considering a different approach, where colleges (or maybe just public colleges) are paid for by the country? Because I don't want anyone to have it better than I did?

bearjaws 7y ago

"If I suffered then everyone must too!!" I didn't get any student loans when I went to college, but I see the economic benefit of freeing up that revenue to be spent else where. This is just an indirect way of saying that turning education into an "investment asset" for banks was a mistake.

malvosenior 7y ago
"I paid my bills so everyone must too!". Should we wipe out credit card debt next? Surely that's more of a burden than student loans since you can't defer payment and the interest rate is higher. How about mortgages, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt is definitely "suffering" levels.
- Simulacra 7y ago
  "In 2 minutes, primary charges will blow base charges and a few square blocks will be reduced to smoldering rubble."
- bearjaws 7y ago
  You are being disingenuous when comparing spending too much money on your credit card to spending "too much" on education. I put "too much" in quotes because determining what the "right" education to get for the future is impossible. There are some educations that are more reliable (economically) but we have no clue what the job market will look like in 20 years, yet alone 30-40. Also don't even get me started on how we turned a literal requirement to survive (housing) into a "investment" asset (mortgages).
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    Why is that disingenuous? People put food and rent on credit cards all the time, do they not need those things? You need a place to live (as you say) so by your logic we should forgive mortgages right? It's crystal clear right now that "an interdisciplinary degree in religious and women's studies" has little to no economic value. That's always been the case and if you took out a huge loan to get that degree, you made an obviously poor financial decision that you alone should be on the hook for.
  - djrogers 7y ago
    > You are being disingenuous when comparing spending too much money on your credit card to spending "too much" on education. Nothing disinenguous about it when 'student loans' can be used for 10s of thousands of dollars worth of 'cost of living' type expenses. I refuse to take any student debt proposals seriously until someone puts forth one that excludes non-tuition expenses.
Simulacra 7y ago
Certainly, but why would you jump to "take from; give to" rather than reforming a system of universities that vastly overcharges for an education - that at best is half-wasted on classes that are forgotten and unnecessary to a major? Would it not be a better use of taxpayer money, time, and policy to reform the university system, the loan system, rather than taking from one and giving to ...yourself? You're not a bank robber are you?!

joshypants 7y ago

You should get a check too. Everyone who paid student loans in the last ~20 years should get some amount of money. We could afford it for less than DOD accounting fraud.

treis 7y ago
Why not just a straight refund for all tuition payments in the last 20 years?
- Simulacra 7y ago
  or 40
  - joshypants 7y ago
    College has gotten a lot more expensive lately. Anecdotally, after the recession my in state tuition doubled because of less funding from the state. I agree it's a great question of what should be done but I'm mostly happy to reframe Sanders' proposal as a minimum. Further reading - I'm a big fan of the schedule idea: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/04/23/providing-reparations-for-victims-of-unfree-college/ https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/04/23/providing-re...
    - djrogers 7y ago
      > Anecdotally, after the recession my in state tuition doubled because of less funding from the state No, your state tuition doubled because of rampant spending increases underwitten by a limiless supply of student loans. Your state may have reduced funding somewhat, but that's not the primary cause of higher tuition. Ask your state school system what it's employee:professor:student ratio is now vs 10 years ago. How many new buildings have been built in the past 10 years? And how do the construction costs compare to those built 20 years ago?
Simulacra 7y ago
An interesting position, but why 20 years? How did you decide on twenty years worth of student loans?

bespoke_engnr 7y ago

I respect your comment, and your viewpoint. But I often hear versions of this: "I had it hard, so we shouldn't let these soft youngsters get off any easier." I'm not saying you don't have a point (college education has a cost), but on some level it's really just an argument for never making anything better. I prefer to think, "Are we really so backwards and impoverished as a society that we don't even have the resources to educate our citizens?"

Macross8299 7y ago
>"I had it hard, so we shouldn't let these soft youngsters get off any easier." No, they are presumably angry because they are still paying for being responsible enough to pay off their debt in the form of opportunity cost. If they paid 100k off in debt in the past, that's money they don't have now to invest or spend. Also, having taxes imposed on you for something you didn't get to benefit from at all (but easily could've) is pretty angering.
- bespoke_engnr 7y ago
  Yeah, I totally get the sentiment. It's absolutely valid and reasonable. But at some point we have to get to a place where newcomers to the system start getting a 'better deal' then the people came before them. That's good news! That means the system is improving!
  - Macross8299 7y ago
    Well, the sentiment aside there's also the issue of the fact that you are subsidizing people that made less financially sound decisions and punishing those who made financially responsible decisions. What about the moral hazard? i.e. if two people had identical student loan balances with $500 minimum payment per month and one person decided to pay $1000 monthly to pay it off quickly and the other person paid $500 and YOLO'd the other $500 monthly into instagram vacations, takeout food, Bitcoin at 19k, etc, you are effectively subsidizing the second group of choices.
  - rsj_hn 7y ago

mlevental 7y ago

how are you getting penalized? where is the penalty that you will pay if this legislation goes into effect? were people that died before vaccines penalized in someway once vaccines were discovered? edit: why does it make sense to be angry about this - it's not about you nor affects you except marginally. i will never understand why people get upset about other people getting lucky. like what a waste of a nice day.

treis 7y ago
>where is the penalty that you will pay if this legislation goes into effect? Someone has to pay for that $1.6 trillion. So the GP is going to get it twice. First by having to pay off their loans and then again by having to (help) pay them off for everyone else.

Upvoter33 7y ago

I think this response is hugely selfish. I also paid off my own debts. But why does that rule out even considering a different approach, where colleges (or maybe just public colleges) are paid for by the country? Because I don't want anyone to have it better than I did?