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Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

40 points by RickJWagner 6y ago

535188B17C93743 6y ago
I've got mixed opinions on this one––I feel like we often wrongly conflate "the elite" and "those with a college degree". The real losers if we cancel student loan debt is probably decamillionaires+ due to taxes. That said, I'm not in favor of immediate student loan cancellation. I think we need a sustainable solution to prevent a rebuild-up of student loans first, and I think we also need to aim to implement the same solutions for those in trade school for the same reason the author mentions. If we're in favor of public funding for secondary schools, why not post-secondary where folks actually tend to learn to critically think and learn their skills for the job market?
- fr11 6y ago
  I think we all lose, if we do decide to pay for this entirely through taxing the rich. We (further) lose social trust between the rich and the rest of us, and we (further) lose the sense that we're all in this together, and we encourage ourselves to further think about how we can get those people over there to pay for our stuff over here. To be clear, yes, please, tax the rich. But do so with a progressive taxation that we all pay into, so we all share the cost to the best of our ability.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  It's a hard problem. People who incur a lot of student debt are basically a random mixture of "students at actual elite colleges", "non-traditional students at for-profit colleges of wildly variable quality" and "people who incurred debt to get their MBA or other professional degrees". It makes no sense to treat all of these people equally wrt. debt forgiveness, and no they aren't just "the elite" either.
drewg123 6y ago
Opinions like this are why we can't have nice things in the USA. People look at some subgroup getting a benefit and are encouraged to think "Why should they get this thing when I get nothing? These people don't deserve it" and so they block the new benefit, and we fall farther and farther behind countries like the Nordics, where this is somehow not a problem.
- orangecat 6y ago
  This isn't a magic button you can press to costlessly improve some people's lives. It's pure wealth redistribution with recipients disproportionately in the upper middle class.
  - drewg123 6y ago
    Do you have a citation to back this up? I admit my knowledge is anecdotal, but I know somebody in their 20s, who went to college, and is in debt that would be cancelled. This person was the first in their family to go to college, and was unable to find a job in their field. Most of this persons peers are in a similar situation with respect to debt and being unable to find jobs in their field. The jobs these people have are entry-level tech support, bar-tending / waiting tables, starbucks, etc. None of them are upper middle class.
    - vorpalhex 6y ago
      Anecdotally, all of my friends who went to college are clearing 90k a year with many over 200k once you include stock options. One friend is a published expert in their field. Out of all my friends who attended college only one didn't get into a profitable field but their degree was in civil planning and their parents are going to buy them a vineyard to run. But again, just anecdotal.
      - GoodJokes 6y ago
        Do these friends have debt?
    - jessedhillon 6y ago
      This analysis breaks out share of debt by family income and student earning quintiles: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/28/who-owes-the-most-student-debt/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/28/who-owes-... Their sources are also linked from that post. Going by student earnings, the top 40% of earners owe almost 60% of the debt. Going by family incomes has about the same distribution. None of the lower three quintiles are breaking ~15% of borrowing. This is absolutely a gift to the wealthy.
RobertRoberts 6y ago
Student loans should be discharable in bankruptcy court. It's insane that they aren't already. Simple solution, anyone in financial trouble gets relief, and people who can pay their debt off should do so. (edit: phrasing)
- RhysU 6y ago
  Hold my beer while I go get in financial trouble.
  - benjohnson 6y ago
    Bingo... If student loans are forgiven, I’m signing up for aviation school just for the thrill of it.
    - RobertRoberts 6y ago
      How is it any different than getting into credit card debt or taking out a loan for a Ferrari? Banks are _supposed_ to evaluate the risk of a loan, not just give it out without consideration.
      - RhysU 6y ago
        Federal student loans have a fixed interest rate and therefore cannot be adjusted based on the risk of the borrower to the extent that a credit card or Ferrari loan can. Private student loans can adjust rates for risk. Should private student loans become increasingly expensive as voters' appetites for federally mandated loan forgiveness increase?
        RobertRoberts 6y ago
        Plenty of loans have a fixed interest rate. But you have a point that the loan is supposed to have federal backing/protections would make it harder to justify releasing these loans. But I would argue that predatory pricing against students would negate that.
supernova87a 6y ago
When everyone was praising the billionaire who paid for the student loans of that graduating class a few years ago (who by the way is under investigation for tax evasion), I raised the point that this might not be seen as fair by everyone and I was immediately criticized by some friends. I cautioned that it's fine for a private individual to do whatever he wants, but watch out if you apply this some day to the government. Imagine how you would feel if you were from a family that had scrimped and saved to send you to college, you worked night jobs, etc. Only to find that at the end everyone else who had taken out loans had them forgiven (basically). What incentive is there to sacrifice or think ahead if this is what will happen at the end? I was panned for thinking such selfish thoughts at the act of someone so generous. I think it would be more reasonable to give every student a $ gift at that point. Watch out, mind you, if our government gets into the business of doing this. You'd better double check whether you think it's an absolute good thing. When you pay someone's debts, you assume some participation into the choices they've made, or some small tacit approval of their choices. And when you forgive debt, it implicitly chooses some people over others. People who made what can objectively be called responsible choices to save and not take out debt will not be happy with what those who are less responsible receive. Are we only going to do this for current students? Are we going to do this for every student to come? What happens when a person knows that whatever debt they take out will be forgiven? Think to the unintended consequences of what you thought were just good intentions. If your level of logic is "what could be so wrong about helping people get out of hardship", then maybe you shouldn't be in the business of administering / making economic policy...
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  >Imagine how you would feel if you were from a family that had scrimped and saved to send you to college, you worked night jobs, etc. Only to find that at the end everyone else who had taken out loans had them forgiven (basically) I think you might be surprised by how many people in that situation would be happy for those who benefited, even at the same time that they are upset that they landed on the other side of the timegate of the policy. Requiring "missed out" scenarios to not occur for any policy like this is too burdensome to society, and too conciliatory to the selfish who would rather the policy not happen at all if they weren't able to benefit from it.
LatteLazy 6y ago
If you want a middle class, subsidise middle class things. Maybe that means some upper limit per person to the subsidy education program, but it does mean subsidising education.
drewg123 6y ago
I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again. When I went to a NY State SUNY school in the late 80s / early 90s, it was heavily supported by the taxpayers of NY. My tuition was $675 a semester, or $1350/year and the fees were minimal. The NY minimum wage at the time was $3.35/hr. That meant that by working a minimum wage job for the summer, I could pay my tuition and fees for the next academic year, and by working part time during the semester, I could pay for rent and food. Thanks to this, I graduated debt free. We need to get back to this level of affordability.
- 535188B17C93743 6y ago
  >I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again. We need to do this the other way around. But yeah, college (and trade schools) are an investment in the people of our country. I sure as hell would rather pay higher taxes and live with well-educated citizens who can create things and start their own businesses than be absurdly rich.
  - thomastjeffery 6y ago
    > We need to do this the other way around. Why does it matter what order these are done?
    - 535188B17C93743 6y ago
      Paying it off now doesn't fix the problem––it's a bandaid.
      - thomastjeffery 6y ago
        Doing one doesn't accomplish the other. So again I ask, why does the order matter?
        fr11 6y ago
thomastjeffery 6y ago
I would expect nothing less from Murdoch press. > Think about it this way: If you only have $1.5 trillion to spend, what policy would help the most people actually struggling right now? I don’t think canceling student loans would rank in the top 20. Do these people even have a top 20? What does it include apart from lowering the corporate tax rate in hopes that money will "trickle down" to the poor? Meanwhile outside the right-wing echo chamber, cancelling student loan debt is very appealing to millions of average people who got into unrecoverable debt by simply trying to better themselves because they believed in the promise of better wages for better education. These people are in debt, making them literally not "the elite". So what elite are we talking about? Universities? OK, well what other options do we have? Leave students and alumni in unrecoverable debt so that those damn "elites" lose money? Is there a way to eliminate that debt without paying Universities what they are owed? I'm all ears. And what is our long term solution? Are we going to stop telling children they will make millions more on average by simply having a bachelors degree? Are we going to make it clear to every prospective student today that going into student loan debt is an unwise risk and not a strong investment? Right-wing conservatives are happy to tell people they deserve the debt they got into, but are too chicken to confront their original motivations. People are desperate to get higher wages, but on the whole, wages have been stagnant since the 70's. The source of this problem is clear when you look at the big picture: billionaires are getting the overwhelming majority of new wealth while the rest of us are left to fight over anything that "trickles down".
eesmith 6y ago
Free public libraries? Paid for by tax dollars? That's making the working class subsidize the elite. Free public roads? Paid for by tax dollars? That's making the working class subsidize the elite. Etc.
- breitling 6y ago
  This is not analogous at all. Everyone uses roads. Everyone has access to public libraries.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    And one third of American young people have/are getting a degree. That isn't enough to make it analogous?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - woodruffw 6y ago
    > Everyone has access to public libraries. I live in a historically poorer (and very densely populated) part of NYC, and this isn’t true: the NYPL’s branches are disproportionately present in more affluent areas. Those areas also tend to have larger libraries and more auxiliary library services (like computer and printer access).
  - eesmith 6y ago
    I meant my comment to point out how people would argue against public roads and against public libraries if we didn't have them. But let's assume I was making a direct argument. There are different levels of road use. There are people who can't afford a car. They might use the road to bicycle or walk. (Though those roads may be cyclist and pedestrian un-friendly and even antagonistic.) They certainly don't need the same level of built-up road that an SUV or truck owner needs. But they pay the same taxes for it as rich people do, and are far more likely to be arrested for the discriminatory crime of "jaywalking". Even setting that aside, poor neighborhoods subsidize the roads and other city services rich people use. - https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investment https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborh... How's that not making the working class subsidize the roads of the elite? And if that's a problem, what should change?
underseacables 6y ago
Any debt forgiveness in the first world is essentially a transfer of wealth, and it forgives everyone who very well could have paid, but hung out to get it forgiven. I took out a loan and it took me years to pay it off, why can’t others do the same.
- voisin 6y ago
  Depends on when you took your loan and what the cost of tuition was then, but this is really about reversing the insane inflation that only came about as a result of the loans in the first place.
  - defertoreptar 6y ago
    What inflation are you referring to.
    - voisin 6y ago
      Inflation in the total cost of a post-secondary degree.
      - defertoreptar 6y ago
        Wouldn't student loan forgiveness only put more fire on that inflation?
- bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
  In my opinion, a more equitable solution is to simply give everyone who took out a student loan a fixed amount of several tens of thousands of dollars. If you paid off your loans already, great, your reward is free money.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    What about those who worked hard and took a few more years to not take out a loan in the first place?
Shivetya 6y ago
If we want government to pay for college then we need to have government treat it as it does Medicare and such. Assign dollar amounts to each course and course hour with a set amount per degree. Oh there will be gnashing of teeth of that I am sure but you can damn well bet colleges, and good ones at that, will create the programs by which they can rest assured of steady pay. Now this may end leaving some degrees and courses by the wayside and this is a correct outcome. Finally we should rethink how we treat endowments and tax breaks many colleges, private or public, receive. Many of the same receive very large property and other tax breaks which then fall upon the communities they are based in to make up by taxing the public.
TechBro8615 6y ago
The real elites, the ones going to top 20 schools, don't even have student loans because the endowments pay for financial aid grants. Those financial aid programs are amazing, but I always did find it a bit unfair that the kids at the best schools are the same people getting the highest paying jobs that would be able to pay off loans if they had them. There's nothing wrong with that system, it's great for the people it benefits, but just a bit sad is all.
_wt8k 6y ago
Cancelling student debt is an example of a moral hazard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard It sets a bad precedent and merely encourages other people to borrow money in the future, but does not solve the underlying issue of college costs. It also subsidizes unemployable degrees. Promises to wholesale cancel student debt is populism. More specifically, it is left-wing economic populism that panders to the young upper-middle class for their votes. (Interestingly, Federalist Papers Number 10 predicts populist demands to cancel debts 200 years ago.) It's worth noting that Biden's plan, which cancels debt for people below a certain income, is somewhat more reasonable. However, I do think that college expenses are a real issue. Education is important in society, and college is also a way for lower-class people to move up the economic ladder. Precisely because people can borrow money, colleges are free to charge exorbitant prices. Colleges then expand with amenities and market a lifestyle rather than a place to learn. They also expand with administrative bloat. I think colleges should be held accountable for their rising prices and where the money is going. P.S. Jonah Goldberg has more writings here: https://thedispatch.com/people/4350832 https://thedispatch.com/people/4350832
- bwb 6y ago
  The problem is our political system has stopped trying to solve issues or evolve. I agree with you, but at this point we are just applying as many band aid fixes as we can until it really burns down or a political evolution happens.
GoodJokes 6y ago
The elite don't have student debt. This argument is dumb.

40 points by RickJWagner 6y ago

I've got mixed opinions on this one––I feel like we often wrongly conflate "the elite" and "those with a college degree". The real losers if we cancel student loan debt is probably decamillionaires+ due to taxes. That said, I'm not in favor of immediate student loan cancellation. I think we need a sustainable solution to prevent a rebuild-up of student loans first, and I think we also need to aim to implement the same solutions for those in trade school for the same reason the author mentions. If we're in favor of public funding for secondary schools, why not post-secondary where folks actually tend to learn to critically think and learn their skills for the job market?

fr11 6y ago
I think we all lose, if we do decide to pay for this entirely through taxing the rich. We (further) lose social trust between the rich and the rest of us, and we (further) lose the sense that we're all in this together, and we encourage ourselves to further think about how we can get those people over there to pay for our stuff over here. To be clear, yes, please, tax the rich. But do so with a progressive taxation that we all pay into, so we all share the cost to the best of our ability.
zozbot234 6y ago
It's a hard problem. People who incur a lot of student debt are basically a random mixture of "students at actual elite colleges", "non-traditional students at for-profit colleges of wildly variable quality" and "people who incurred debt to get their MBA or other professional degrees". It makes no sense to treat all of these people equally wrt. debt forgiveness, and no they aren't just "the elite" either.

drewg123 6y ago

Opinions like this are why we can't have nice things in the USA. People look at some subgroup getting a benefit and are encouraged to think "Why should they get this thing when I get nothing? These people don't deserve it" and so they block the new benefit, and we fall farther and farther behind countries like the Nordics, where this is somehow not a problem.

orangecat 6y ago
This isn't a magic button you can press to costlessly improve some people's lives. It's pure wealth redistribution with recipients disproportionately in the upper middle class.
- drewg123 6y ago
  Do you have a citation to back this up? I admit my knowledge is anecdotal, but I know somebody in their 20s, who went to college, and is in debt that would be cancelled. This person was the first in their family to go to college, and was unable to find a job in their field. Most of this persons peers are in a similar situation with respect to debt and being unable to find jobs in their field. The jobs these people have are entry-level tech support, bar-tending / waiting tables, starbucks, etc. None of them are upper middle class.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    Anecdotally, all of my friends who went to college are clearing 90k a year with many over 200k once you include stock options. One friend is a published expert in their field. Out of all my friends who attended college only one didn't get into a profitable field but their degree was in civil planning and their parents are going to buy them a vineyard to run. But again, just anecdotal.
    - GoodJokes 6y ago
      Do these friends have debt?
  - jessedhillon 6y ago
    This analysis breaks out share of debt by family income and student earning quintiles: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/28/who-owes-the-most-student-debt/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/28/who-owes-... Their sources are also linked from that post. Going by student earnings, the top 40% of earners owe almost 60% of the debt. Going by family incomes has about the same distribution. None of the lower three quintiles are breaking ~15% of borrowing. This is absolutely a gift to the wealthy.

RobertRoberts 6y ago

Student loans should be discharable in bankruptcy court. It's insane that they aren't already. Simple solution, anyone in financial trouble gets relief, and people who can pay their debt off should do so. (edit: phrasing)

RhysU 6y ago
Hold my beer while I go get in financial trouble.
- benjohnson 6y ago
  Bingo... If student loans are forgiven, I’m signing up for aviation school just for the thrill of it.
  - RobertRoberts 6y ago
    How is it any different than getting into credit card debt or taking out a loan for a Ferrari? Banks are _supposed_ to evaluate the risk of a loan, not just give it out without consideration.
    - RhysU 6y ago
      Federal student loans have a fixed interest rate and therefore cannot be adjusted based on the risk of the borrower to the extent that a credit card or Ferrari loan can. Private student loans can adjust rates for risk. Should private student loans become increasingly expensive as voters' appetites for federally mandated loan forgiveness increase?
      - RobertRoberts 6y ago
        Plenty of loans have a fixed interest rate. But you have a point that the loan is supposed to have federal backing/protections would make it harder to justify releasing these loans. But I would argue that predatory pricing against students would negate that.

supernova87a 6y ago

When everyone was praising the billionaire who paid for the student loans of that graduating class a few years ago (who by the way is under investigation for tax evasion), I raised the point that this might not be seen as fair by everyone and I was immediately criticized by some friends. I cautioned that it's fine for a private individual to do whatever he wants, but watch out if you apply this some day to the government. Imagine how you would feel if you were from a family that had scrimped and saved to send you to college, you worked night jobs, etc. Only to find that at the end everyone else who had taken out loans had them forgiven (basically). What incentive is there to sacrifice or think ahead if this is what will happen at the end? I was panned for thinking such selfish thoughts at the act of someone so generous. I think it would be more reasonable to give every student a $ gift at that point. Watch out, mind you, if our government gets into the business of doing this. You'd better double check whether you think it's an absolute good thing. When you pay someone's debts, you assume some participation into the choices they've made, or some small tacit approval of their choices. And when you forgive debt, it implicitly chooses some people over others. People who made what can objectively be called responsible choices to save and not take out debt will not be happy with what those who are less responsible receive. Are we only going to do this for current students? Are we going to do this for every student to come? What happens when a person knows that whatever debt they take out will be forgiven? Think to the unintended consequences of what you thought were just good intentions. If your level of logic is "what could be so wrong about helping people get out of hardship", then maybe you shouldn't be in the business of administering / making economic policy...

happytoexplain 6y ago
>Imagine how you would feel if you were from a family that had scrimped and saved to send you to college, you worked night jobs, etc. Only to find that at the end everyone else who had taken out loans had them forgiven (basically) I think you might be surprised by how many people in that situation would be happy for those who benefited, even at the same time that they are upset that they landed on the other side of the timegate of the policy. Requiring "missed out" scenarios to not occur for any policy like this is too burdensome to society, and too conciliatory to the selfish who would rather the policy not happen at all if they weren't able to benefit from it.

LatteLazy 6y ago

If you want a middle class, subsidise middle class things. Maybe that means some upper limit per person to the subsidy education program, but it does mean subsidising education.

drewg123 6y ago

I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again. When I went to a NY State SUNY school in the late 80s / early 90s, it was heavily supported by the taxpayers of NY. My tuition was $675 a semester, or $1350/year and the fees were minimal. The NY minimum wage at the time was $3.35/hr. That meant that by working a minimum wage job for the summer, I could pay my tuition and fees for the next academic year, and by working part time during the semester, I could pay for rent and food. Thanks to this, I graduated debt free. We need to get back to this level of affordability.

535188B17C93743 6y ago
>I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again. We need to do this the other way around. But yeah, college (and trade schools) are an investment in the people of our country. I sure as hell would rather pay higher taxes and live with well-educated citizens who can create things and start their own businesses than be absurdly rich.
- thomastjeffery 6y ago
  > We need to do this the other way around. Why does it matter what order these are done?
  - 535188B17C93743 6y ago
    Paying it off now doesn't fix the problem––it's a bandaid.
    - thomastjeffery 6y ago
      Doing one doesn't accomplish the other. So again I ask, why does the order matter?
      - fr11 6y ago

thomastjeffery 6y ago

I would expect nothing less from Murdoch press. > Think about it this way: If you only have $1.5 trillion to spend, what policy would help the most people actually struggling right now? I don’t think canceling student loans would rank in the top 20. Do these people even have a top 20? What does it include apart from lowering the corporate tax rate in hopes that money will "trickle down" to the poor? Meanwhile outside the right-wing echo chamber, cancelling student loan debt is very appealing to millions of average people who got into unrecoverable debt by simply trying to better themselves because they believed in the promise of better wages for better education. These people are in debt, making them literally not "the elite". So what elite are we talking about? Universities? OK, well what other options do we have? Leave students and alumni in unrecoverable debt so that those damn "elites" lose money? Is there a way to eliminate that debt without paying Universities what they are owed? I'm all ears. And what is our long term solution? Are we going to stop telling children they will make millions more on average by simply having a bachelors degree? Are we going to make it clear to every prospective student today that going into student loan debt is an unwise risk and not a strong investment? Right-wing conservatives are happy to tell people they deserve the debt they got into, but are too chicken to confront their original motivations. People are desperate to get higher wages, but on the whole, wages have been stagnant since the 70's. The source of this problem is clear when you look at the big picture: billionaires are getting the overwhelming majority of new wealth while the rest of us are left to fight over anything that "trickles down".

eesmith 6y ago

Free public libraries? Paid for by tax dollars? That's making the working class subsidize the elite. Free public roads? Paid for by tax dollars? That's making the working class subsidize the elite. Etc.

breitling 6y ago
This is not analogous at all. Everyone uses roads. Everyone has access to public libraries.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  And one third of American young people have/are getting a degree. That isn't enough to make it analogous?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- woodruffw 6y ago
  > Everyone has access to public libraries. I live in a historically poorer (and very densely populated) part of NYC, and this isn’t true: the NYPL’s branches are disproportionately present in more affluent areas. Those areas also tend to have larger libraries and more auxiliary library services (like computer and printer access).
- eesmith 6y ago
  I meant my comment to point out how people would argue against public roads and against public libraries if we didn't have them. But let's assume I was making a direct argument. There are different levels of road use. There are people who can't afford a car. They might use the road to bicycle or walk. (Though those roads may be cyclist and pedestrian un-friendly and even antagonistic.) They certainly don't need the same level of built-up road that an SUV or truck owner needs. But they pay the same taxes for it as rich people do, and are far more likely to be arrested for the discriminatory crime of "jaywalking". Even setting that aside, poor neighborhoods subsidize the roads and other city services rich people use. - https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investment https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborh... How's that not making the working class subsidize the roads of the elite? And if that's a problem, what should change?

underseacables 6y ago

Any debt forgiveness in the first world is essentially a transfer of wealth, and it forgives everyone who very well could have paid, but hung out to get it forgiven. I took out a loan and it took me years to pay it off, why can’t others do the same.

voisin 6y ago
Depends on when you took your loan and what the cost of tuition was then, but this is really about reversing the insane inflation that only came about as a result of the loans in the first place.
- defertoreptar 6y ago
  What inflation are you referring to.
  - voisin 6y ago
    Inflation in the total cost of a post-secondary degree.
    - defertoreptar 6y ago
      Wouldn't student loan forgiveness only put more fire on that inflation?
bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
In my opinion, a more equitable solution is to simply give everyone who took out a student loan a fixed amount of several tens of thousands of dollars. If you paid off your loans already, great, your reward is free money.
- bluGill 6y ago
  What about those who worked hard and took a few more years to not take out a loan in the first place?

Shivetya 6y ago

If we want government to pay for college then we need to have government treat it as it does Medicare and such. Assign dollar amounts to each course and course hour with a set amount per degree. Oh there will be gnashing of teeth of that I am sure but you can damn well bet colleges, and good ones at that, will create the programs by which they can rest assured of steady pay. Now this may end leaving some degrees and courses by the wayside and this is a correct outcome. Finally we should rethink how we treat endowments and tax breaks many colleges, private or public, receive. Many of the same receive very large property and other tax breaks which then fall upon the communities they are based in to make up by taxing the public.

TechBro8615 6y ago

The real elites, the ones going to top 20 schools, don't even have student loans because the endowments pay for financial aid grants. Those financial aid programs are amazing, but I always did find it a bit unfair that the kids at the best schools are the same people getting the highest paying jobs that would be able to pay off loans if they had them. There's nothing wrong with that system, it's great for the people it benefits, but just a bit sad is all.

_wt8k 6y ago

Cancelling student debt is an example of a moral hazard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard It sets a bad precedent and merely encourages other people to borrow money in the future, but does not solve the underlying issue of college costs. It also subsidizes unemployable degrees. Promises to wholesale cancel student debt is populism. More specifically, it is left-wing economic populism that panders to the young upper-middle class for their votes. (Interestingly, Federalist Papers Number 10 predicts populist demands to cancel debts 200 years ago.) It's worth noting that Biden's plan, which cancels debt for people below a certain income, is somewhat more reasonable. However, I do think that college expenses are a real issue. Education is important in society, and college is also a way for lower-class people to move up the economic ladder. Precisely because people can borrow money, colleges are free to charge exorbitant prices. Colleges then expand with amenities and market a lifestyle rather than a place to learn. They also expand with administrative bloat. I think colleges should be held accountable for their rising prices and where the money is going. P.S. Jonah Goldberg has more writings here: https://thedispatch.com/people/4350832 https://thedispatch.com/people/4350832

bwb 6y ago
The problem is our political system has stopped trying to solve issues or evolve. I agree with you, but at this point we are just applying as many band aid fixes as we can until it really burns down or a political evolution happens.

GoodJokes 6y ago

The elite don't have student debt. This argument is dumb.