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>> life is better for each successive generation > It's not clear that this actually happened. i'll accept that, in the context of higher-ed. so the path forw

>> life is better for each successive generation > It's not clear that this actually happened. i'll accept that, in the context of higher-ed. so the path forward? break this trend. address the structural issues which are causing higher education to become less affordable to each successive generation. of the (false or real) dichotomy in "why not both [decrease tuition and forgive outstanding loans]", escaping the cycle is the more substantial component. so, "why not both"? treat the two propositions as perpendicular: reducing tuition benefits many future generations; forgiving loans -- if tuition is really being reduced -- benefits only the one generation. assume tuition has been reduced. on what grounds should we then decide to forgive outstanding loans? i read you as presenting something of a justice, or outcome-based argument. like, "we should direct resources to the previous generation because they got a raw deal in comparison to the earlier generation and (if things go well) the future generation." if this comes at the expense of the surrounding generations, then i don't take this fore-granted. i take the view that investment between generations (loosely: the middle-aged investing in the youth, and the youth being indebted to that generation as they age) should remain more or less constant. i don't believe that any one generation having a bad outcome makes it right for them to place a debt on the following generation. so this "debt" claim: if we "forgive" the previous generation's loans, what does that mean for the next generation? it's effectively socializing the debt: moving it off the individuals and onto the country. the country gets less revenue into the future, which means higher deficit and funds need to be raised elsewhere into the future (i.e. taxing future generations more). then what approaches do we have to right things for the previous generation of graduates without indebting the future generation? we would need a wealth transfer either from (a) the generation who was in power during the tuition increases or (b) an intra-generational transfer strictly within the generation which got a raw deal. (a) is risky because it disrupts retirement details for that older generation. (b) misses the point that the bad tuition policies had widespread effects within this generation that's experienced them. John's federal loan increased Mary's out-of-pocket tuition cost. now you want Mary to compensate John for that? and you want those that didn't even attend school to shoulder this? how is that fair? who, ultimately, benefited because of the increased tuition costs? where did that money go? much of the increased tuition that John and Mary both paid went into university endowments. if it's right to compensate John for the raw deal he got, the least-bad place to raise those funds is from the university endowments. these endowments are often rationalized as being the funding source for future students -- though in practice this is dubious. so, force these endowments to actually be used to decrease tuition for the future generations. having done that, i'll grant that whatever excess these endowments have beyond what's necessary to fund future generations could fairly be redirected to paying down the loans of previous students. > Why not both? If it's admitted that tuition is too high — "pressure universities to fund tuition via their endowments" — then doesn't refusing to forgive loans entail refusing to help the students who suffered from tuition being too high? alright, we can do both. but where the money comes from matters, as does the ordering. intra-generational transfers don't make sense because the harm was widespread. and we can't take more from the future generation to make up for mistakes of the past. if you want both, you have to thread this needle (i hope these endowments are large enough). apologies for the long comment. you seem engaged in this issue (i appreciate that), so i hope it was worth the time to read.

lapcat 4y ago
> i read you as presenting something of a justice, or outcome-based argument. like, "we should direct resources to the previous generation because they got a raw deal in comparison to the earlier generation and (if things go well) the future generation." Not really. I don't think we need a justification to help people who need help. I just think it's wrong and harmful to society for a bunch of people to be saddled with a lifetime of debt. (It's not great for the economy either.) If we care about this issue, then it would be weird to help one group of people but leave out another group of people who have the same problem, college affordability. You ask what's the justification for helping people who are already indebted, but I ask what's the justification for excluding them from help? I don't think it's particularly useful to think in terms of "generations". In every age group there are people who are rich, people who are poor, and everything in between. The rich kids of every generation have no student loan debt. > alright, we can do both. but where the money comes from matters Yes. But this is not a matter of age, it's a matter of wealth. We have progressive taxation, so the people who benefit the most from our system pay the most taxes. Whether that's intra-generational or inter-generational is largely irrelevant. I'm fine with taxing university endowments. I'm not ok with leaving anyone behind. I don't think we should write off any generation, allowing older people to suffer while only improving the lives of younger people, for the sake of so-called "progress". I'm not talking about "righting past wrongs", for the past can never truly be undone. I'm just talking about making everyone's lives better. After all, discriminating against older people is just discriminating against your future self. Someday you'll be the generation that many people want to write off and ignore.
- colinsane 4y ago
  > You ask what's the justification for helping people who are already indebted, but I ask what's the justification for excluding them from help? this is a noble cause. like many, i have causes i'm passionate about, to which i donate my time and money. but it's quite a different thing when i force everyone around me to prioritize my own particular goals. why don't we take this $500B of canceled debt and direct that into supplying mosquito nets to malaria-prone regions of the world instead? obviously, that would help more people, and more significantly, than wiping clean our own debts. "strawman", i hear you say? it's only a strawman if you deny utilitarianism and admit that our opinions on how to do good in the world are allowed to vary. at which point: why should you get to force me to act toward your good at the expense of my own good -- or vice versa? there's room in this approach to governmental funding for a social safety net: a thing which is not so much about doing good in the world as ensuring some base level of living which secures the continuation of society in the broadest of form. at which point, this loan issue is only tangentially related: nobody should be forced onto the streets because they can't make their student loan payment. nobody should be forced to choose between feeding their family or paying their loan. i am happy to pay my dues into a system that guarantees these things; but forgiving loans to anyone making < $125,000 is doing way more than this. i don't want to be what-about-ist, but i do want to illustrate that there are real tradeoffs. i pay taxes equivalent to 3x my living expenses. it's a relatively frugal lifestyle, with roommates, home-cooking and no travel. after 5 years, i'm half-way to being able to own a starter-home in the city i grew up in. you say we have progressive taxation (last year i reached the social security contribution limit for the first time in my life, actually decreasing my effective tax rate), but this is still a nontrivial burden for someone who really hasn't secured his own future yet. over the years i had worked my way up to donating 5% of every paycheck to EA causes. i canceled these recurring donations two months ago as my living expenses and the cost of the home i'm saving for both rose. quite literally: inflation correlated to public/deficit spending led me to cut my own charitable donations. i want to do good in this world, much as you do. but there's a give-and-take everywhere you look, even if it's diffuse or hard to identify. you can only solve so many social ills via compulsory redistribution until you inadvertently worsen other things. this is why i so heavily favor spending which fixes systemic issues (with the opportunity of benefiting untold generations) over one-time transfers which divert resources from unknowable pursuits toward temporary patches. i looked into my own university (University of Washington), by the way: their endowment is large enough to cover -- by very rough estimate -- about half of tuition in perpetuity; but not enough to refund their graduates.

lapcat 4y ago

> i read you as presenting something of a justice, or outcome-based argument. like, "we should direct resources to the previous generation because they got a raw deal in comparison to the earlier generation and (if things go well) the future generation." Not really. I don't think we need a justification to help people who need help. I just think it's wrong and harmful to society for a bunch of people to be saddled with a lifetime of debt. (It's not great for the economy either.) If we care about this issue, then it would be weird to help one group of people but leave out another group of people who have the same problem, college affordability. You ask what's the justification for helping people who are already indebted, but I ask what's the justification for excluding them from help? I don't think it's particularly useful to think in terms of "generations". In every age group there are people who are rich, people who are poor, and everything in between. The rich kids of every generation have no student loan debt. > alright, we can do both. but where the money comes from matters Yes. But this is not a matter of age, it's a matter of wealth. We have progressive taxation, so the people who benefit the most from our system pay the most taxes. Whether that's intra-generational or inter-generational is largely irrelevant. I'm fine with taxing university endowments. I'm not ok with leaving anyone behind. I don't think we should write off any generation, allowing older people to suffer while only improving the lives of younger people, for the sake of so-called "progress". I'm not talking about "righting past wrongs", for the past can never truly be undone. I'm just talking about making everyone's lives better. After all, discriminating against older people is just discriminating against your future self. Someday you'll be the generation that many people want to write off and ignore.

colinsane 4y ago
> You ask what's the justification for helping people who are already indebted, but I ask what's the justification for excluding them from help? this is a noble cause. like many, i have causes i'm passionate about, to which i donate my time and money. but it's quite a different thing when i force everyone around me to prioritize my own particular goals. why don't we take this $500B of canceled debt and direct that into supplying mosquito nets to malaria-prone regions of the world instead? obviously, that would help more people, and more significantly, than wiping clean our own debts. "strawman", i hear you say? it's only a strawman if you deny utilitarianism and admit that our opinions on how to do good in the world are allowed to vary. at which point: why should you get to force me to act toward your good at the expense of my own good -- or vice versa? there's room in this approach to governmental funding for a social safety net: a thing which is not so much about doing good in the world as ensuring some base level of living which secures the continuation of society in the broadest of form. at which point, this loan issue is only tangentially related: nobody should be forced onto the streets because they can't make their student loan payment. nobody should be forced to choose between feeding their family or paying their loan. i am happy to pay my dues into a system that guarantees these things; but forgiving loans to anyone making < $125,000 is doing way more than this. i don't want to be what-about-ist, but i do want to illustrate that there are real tradeoffs. i pay taxes equivalent to 3x my living expenses. it's a relatively frugal lifestyle, with roommates, home-cooking and no travel. after 5 years, i'm half-way to being able to own a starter-home in the city i grew up in. you say we have progressive taxation (last year i reached the social security contribution limit for the first time in my life, actually decreasing my effective tax rate), but this is still a nontrivial burden for someone who really hasn't secured his own future yet. over the years i had worked my way up to donating 5% of every paycheck to EA causes. i canceled these recurring donations two months ago as my living expenses and the cost of the home i'm saving for both rose. quite literally: inflation correlated to public/deficit spending led me to cut my own charitable donations. i want to do good in this world, much as you do. but there's a give-and-take everywhere you look, even if it's diffuse or hard to identify. you can only solve so many social ills via compulsory redistribution until you inadvertently worsen other things. this is why i so heavily favor spending which fixes systemic issues (with the opportunity of benefiting untold generations) over one-time transfers which divert resources from unknowable pursuits toward temporary patches. i looked into my own university (University of Washington), by the way: their endowment is large enough to cover -- by very rough estimate -- about half of tuition in perpetuity; but not enough to refund their graduates.