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Why does this "penalize" students who have paid off their loans? If cancer were cured, has everyone who had cancer prior been "penalized"?

karmelapple 4y ago
The cancer analogy seems pretty off the mark to me. People taking out a student loan voluntarily took on that debt. Pretty much nobody is voluntarily choosing to get cancer. (Yes, some people perform behavior that increases their chances, but rarely is it a 100% chance) So if someone chose to do something knowing the negative consequences that would happen (repayment + interest), and then the rules change on them and everyone else in the middle of the contract, can you imagine someone being at least a little unhappy about that? An analogy that I think fits better: A teacher says there's an exam next Friday on chapters 1 - 5 from a textbook. You study, do your work, skip spending time with friends and family on the weekend in order to study for the exam. But then the exam rolls around the teacher says, "Nah, you know what? We're only going to test chapters 4 - 5." You might think, "But I could have seen my friends instead! I could have spent my limited amount of time in different ways over the past week. The guy who went out and partied all weekend got lucky and will get the same grade as me, ugh." I can certainly understand why someone who studied may feel unhappy about that, or think it's unfair.
- IceMetalPunk 4y ago
  > People taking out a student loan voluntarily took on that debt. When people say this, they are implying that choosing to get a higher education that creates student loan debt is equal to some other choice that wouldn't incur that debt. But of course, this is untrue; the benefits of a quality education are not equivalent to other options. It's not just "student loans or no student loans" in isolation. To make your analogy somewhat more accurate (though probably still imperfect): it's like the teacher says "study chapters 1-5 and I'll give you a 90% guarantee in the class, and those chapters will be on the test", then the test ends up being only chapter 3. Yes, you spent the extra time studying you didn't need, but you still got the 90% guarantee in the class, so the time debt paid off even if the people who didn't study as much got to hang out with friends more, since they didn't get that 90% guarantee.

karmelapple 4y ago

The cancer analogy seems pretty off the mark to me. People taking out a student loan voluntarily took on that debt. Pretty much nobody is voluntarily choosing to get cancer. (Yes, some people perform behavior that increases their chances, but rarely is it a 100% chance) So if someone chose to do something knowing the negative consequences that would happen (repayment + interest), and then the rules change on them and everyone else in the middle of the contract, can you imagine someone being at least a little unhappy about that? An analogy that I think fits better: A teacher says there's an exam next Friday on chapters 1 - 5 from a textbook. You study, do your work, skip spending time with friends and family on the weekend in order to study for the exam. But then the exam rolls around the teacher says, "Nah, you know what? We're only going to test chapters 4 - 5." You might think, "But I could have seen my friends instead! I could have spent my limited amount of time in different ways over the past week. The guy who went out and partied all weekend got lucky and will get the same grade as me, ugh." I can certainly understand why someone who studied may feel unhappy about that, or think it's unfair.

IceMetalPunk 4y ago
> People taking out a student loan voluntarily took on that debt. When people say this, they are implying that choosing to get a higher education that creates student loan debt is equal to some other choice that wouldn't incur that debt. But of course, this is untrue; the benefits of a quality education are not equivalent to other options. It's not just "student loans or no student loans" in isolation. To make your analogy somewhat more accurate (though probably still imperfect): it's like the teacher says "study chapters 1-5 and I'll give you a 90% guarantee in the class, and those chapters will be on the test", then the test ends up being only chapter 3. Yes, you spent the extra time studying you didn't need, but you still got the 90% guarantee in the class, so the time debt paid off even if the people who didn't study as much got to hang out with friends more, since they didn't get that 90% guarantee.