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> not all students get the benefit, some already paid off their debts or a large part of it. I'm one of the people who paid off a large portion of debt and pro

> not all students get the benefit, some already paid off their debts or a large part of it. I'm one of the people who paid off a large portion of debt and probably don't need this assistance. However, this argument is so offensive. People were encouraged to take out debt for a number of reasons, and by a number of institutions, without first being educated about the implications of that. This argument states that we shouldn't help people because other people didn't have help. Following this logic, we shouldn't seek to help anyone ever, unless everyone else has also received the exact same help. - slaves shouldn't be freed because other slaves weren't freed - we shouldn't give food to the starving, because those not starving aren't getting free food - we shouldn't care about others because they don't care about me These arguments are all the greedy option in game theory, and all contribute to the worst outcomes across the board, except for those who can scam others in this system. The right way to think about programs that help others is to consider cooperating - some people don't get the maximum possible, but they do get some! And when the game is played over and over, all parties get the maximum benefit possible. In the case of student debt, paying it off and fixing the broken system, by allowing bankruptcy or some other fix, would benefit far more people than it would hurt; it would also benefit some people who paid their loans off completely: parents of children who can't pay off their loans now. In the end the argument that some already paid off their debts is inherently a selfish argument in the style of "I don't want them to get help because I didn't get help." Society would be better if we didn't think in such greedy terms. All that said - there are real concerns about debt repayment. The point about emboldening universities to ask for higher tuition highlights the underlying issue with the student loan system. Why bring up the most selfish possible argument when there are valid, useful arguments for your position?

Fidelix 2y ago
Consider that his position might be more profound than you considered it to be. Mine is. It's about incentives. Now you can take it from there, and at least in my interpretation the rest of your rebuttal falls apart. There is absolutely no equivalency to slavery. That is simply dishonest. Slaves didn't choose to be slaves. Do students who take on debt have no agency whatsoever to you? Did the people who paid such debts had no agency when paying?
- bun_at_work 2y ago
  If you don't like the equivalence to slavery, pick a different example, there are three I posted and more you can probably think of on your own. We know that the idea of a rational agent in economics is a myth, and as you mentioned, it is about incentives, as well as motives. Students who take on debt that limits them in later life don't have all the information they need at the time they make the decision. Saying the information is available is not reasonable. These students are told they _most_ go to college to make a living. They are not told they need to get an engineering, medical, or finance degree to make going to college worth it, economically. They are shown all the loans they can get without an equivalent amount of effort put into educating them about the consequences those loans represent. For example, how much the loans will cost in the long run, along with estimated pay for various fields of study. Furthermore, the loans are given for any degree program without restriction. All the comments I made about game theory still stand, and we don't need to get into the myriad problems with our education and student loan systems. I agree they aren't perfect; I just think the argument 'I didn't get my loans paid off neither should you' is an extremely selfish one. Just because someone suffers doesn't mean everyone should. Also - in my experience people who are ready to make that selfish argument are very offended when it gets flipped on them. So they can understand intuitively the issue with the selfish position.
  - sahila 2y ago
    > They are not told they need to get an engineering, medical, or finance degree to make going to college worth it, economically. This is a very well known fact. When I was in high school in the 2000s, it was a well known joke about how the arts / english majors won't land you a job. And even if you never heard about it, the data for average salary for graduates in the college, its dropout rates, and salary by majors is highly publicized. This isn't advanced research to do and in the age of internet, someone considering college should be able to do. I think the problem is no one believes they are the average case and instead are the exception who'll make it work.
indymike 2y ago
> I'm one of the people who paid off a large portion of debt and probably don't need this assistance. However, this argument is so offensive. Please spend my tax dollars on curing disease, fixing homelessness, free addiction treatment, better mental health care, improving our justice system, or even cold fusion. All of these have better outcomes than does paying off student debt. > These arguments are all the greedy option You left out the best argument against: there are much better things to spend money on. I could get behind fixing Bush's biggest mistake - his bankruptcy change that moved the pendulum to lifetime debt. I'd love to see people be able to discharge student loans that are impossible to pay off or where the debtor was put in debt by a fraudulent or failed education institution.
- anticensor 2y ago
  Student loans are not dischargeable but they are not inheritable too.
  - indymike 2y ago
    Lifetime debt is not ok
    - cma 2y ago
      I don't like it, but how would you prevent everyone from getting expensive schooling and then immediately declaring bankruptcy? Just better redistribution and georgism/UBI type stuff but also keeping the need based stuff (medicaid, social security disability etc.) I think would be more fair and not punish people who paid off their debt or worked a job during school. Expanding free public education to K-16 and maybe ?more heavily taxing elite universities that get most of their value from the prestige of their own high ranking students who then have to pay more for it and other things like prestigious journals and even startup funds like YC, top law firms, etc. that work largely as prestige money redirectors where the value comes from those capturing the prestige but is redirected almost entireoy to just whoever kicked off the prestige flywheel early..
      - 2y ago
itsoktocry 2y ago
>People were encouraged to take out debt for a number of reasons, and by a number of institutions, without first being educated about the implications of that 18 year olds don't understand what a loan is? Zero accountability?
- p_j_w 2y ago
  In the United States? For huge swaths of the population that answer is obviously no. Financial education and literacy in this country is a complete fucking joke. Very few people expected that they would be on a payment schedule that amounted to $200/mo for 30 years, and for a significant portion of them, there was really strong messaging implying that getting a college education was the only pathway to financial success, such that student loans were worth it. Two generations and counting have been massively duped.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  99.65% of 18-year olds 100% do not. or compound interest. the system is rigged against them to not be taught any of basic finacial literacy
  - neilc 2y ago
    Basically all college-bound 18-year olds understand what debt is — you’re infantilizing them to a ridiculous degree if you think otherwise. A lot of them choose to proceed with college due to career optimism and following the herd, not because “debt” is some magical concept that they don’t understand.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      Basically all college-bound 18-year olds understand what debt is not to sound snarky but seldom do I read here something more wrong... if they did they would NEVER take on the kind of debt they are taking on in droves to get that paper. "debt" is one thing, you probably understand "debt" when you are a kid... understanding loans however - is an entirely different thing from general concept of "debt"
qwytw 2y ago
Isn't most debt incurred by graduate students, especially those in med or law schools? Surely 4 years of higher education should be enough for someone to figure out basic maths?
- stevenwoo 2y ago
  Maybe, maybe not? This is hard to find via search, possibly due to graduate being inside the search term undergraduate. :) This shows the average total owed by graduate students is much higher than undergraduates, about 3x. https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/student-loans/average-student-loan-debt-statistics/ https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/student-loans/avera... So just spitballing here, if there are more than 3x undergraduates than graduate students, and the same number have loans, the undergraduate debt is higher overall. But then there's this showing the median being closer to only 2x different https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/18/facts-about-student-loans/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/18/facts-abo... The long rise of for profit undergraduate institutions until quite recently says it was extremely profitable to get students into debt for questionable education value, it's almost like payday loan shops, just preying on different segment of population. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2022/01/how-university-of-phoenix-failed-its.html https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2022/01/how-universi... I don't think traditional public or private four year universities are blameless, either, raising tuition to match this endlessly rising loans guaranteed by Federal government with spiraling administrative system costs. Even though the cost is high I thought in the USA the number of med school students is restricted to a very small number.
- datavirtue 2y ago
  My mom has a master's degree and couldn't plan her finances or retirement if her life depended on it.

Fidelix 2y ago

Consider that his position might be more profound than you considered it to be. Mine is. It's about incentives. Now you can take it from there, and at least in my interpretation the rest of your rebuttal falls apart. There is absolutely no equivalency to slavery. That is simply dishonest. Slaves didn't choose to be slaves. Do students who take on debt have no agency whatsoever to you? Did the people who paid such debts had no agency when paying?

bun_at_work 2y ago
If you don't like the equivalence to slavery, pick a different example, there are three I posted and more you can probably think of on your own. We know that the idea of a rational agent in economics is a myth, and as you mentioned, it is about incentives, as well as motives. Students who take on debt that limits them in later life don't have all the information they need at the time they make the decision. Saying the information is available is not reasonable. These students are told they _most_ go to college to make a living. They are not told they need to get an engineering, medical, or finance degree to make going to college worth it, economically. They are shown all the loans they can get without an equivalent amount of effort put into educating them about the consequences those loans represent. For example, how much the loans will cost in the long run, along with estimated pay for various fields of study. Furthermore, the loans are given for any degree program without restriction. All the comments I made about game theory still stand, and we don't need to get into the myriad problems with our education and student loan systems. I agree they aren't perfect; I just think the argument 'I didn't get my loans paid off neither should you' is an extremely selfish one. Just because someone suffers doesn't mean everyone should. Also - in my experience people who are ready to make that selfish argument are very offended when it gets flipped on them. So they can understand intuitively the issue with the selfish position.
- sahila 2y ago
  > They are not told they need to get an engineering, medical, or finance degree to make going to college worth it, economically. This is a very well known fact. When I was in high school in the 2000s, it was a well known joke about how the arts / english majors won't land you a job. And even if you never heard about it, the data for average salary for graduates in the college, its dropout rates, and salary by majors is highly publicized. This isn't advanced research to do and in the age of internet, someone considering college should be able to do. I think the problem is no one believes they are the average case and instead are the exception who'll make it work.

indymike 2y ago

> I'm one of the people who paid off a large portion of debt and probably don't need this assistance. However, this argument is so offensive. Please spend my tax dollars on curing disease, fixing homelessness, free addiction treatment, better mental health care, improving our justice system, or even cold fusion. All of these have better outcomes than does paying off student debt. > These arguments are all the greedy option You left out the best argument against: there are much better things to spend money on. I could get behind fixing Bush's biggest mistake - his bankruptcy change that moved the pendulum to lifetime debt. I'd love to see people be able to discharge student loans that are impossible to pay off or where the debtor was put in debt by a fraudulent or failed education institution.

anticensor 2y ago
Student loans are not dischargeable but they are not inheritable too.
- indymike 2y ago
  Lifetime debt is not ok
  - cma 2y ago
    I don't like it, but how would you prevent everyone from getting expensive schooling and then immediately declaring bankruptcy? Just better redistribution and georgism/UBI type stuff but also keeping the need based stuff (medicaid, social security disability etc.) I think would be more fair and not punish people who paid off their debt or worked a job during school. Expanding free public education to K-16 and maybe ?more heavily taxing elite universities that get most of their value from the prestige of their own high ranking students who then have to pay more for it and other things like prestigious journals and even startup funds like YC, top law firms, etc. that work largely as prestige money redirectors where the value comes from those capturing the prestige but is redirected almost entireoy to just whoever kicked off the prestige flywheel early..
    - 2y ago

itsoktocry 2y ago

>People were encouraged to take out debt for a number of reasons, and by a number of institutions, without first being educated about the implications of that 18 year olds don't understand what a loan is? Zero accountability?

p_j_w 2y ago
In the United States? For huge swaths of the population that answer is obviously no. Financial education and literacy in this country is a complete fucking joke. Very few people expected that they would be on a payment schedule that amounted to $200/mo for 30 years, and for a significant portion of them, there was really strong messaging implying that getting a college education was the only pathway to financial success, such that student loans were worth it. Two generations and counting have been massively duped.
bdangubic 2y ago
99.65% of 18-year olds 100% do not. or compound interest. the system is rigged against them to not be taught any of basic finacial literacy
- neilc 2y ago
  Basically all college-bound 18-year olds understand what debt is — you’re infantilizing them to a ridiculous degree if you think otherwise. A lot of them choose to proceed with college due to career optimism and following the herd, not because “debt” is some magical concept that they don’t understand.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    Basically all college-bound 18-year olds understand what debt is not to sound snarky but seldom do I read here something more wrong... if they did they would NEVER take on the kind of debt they are taking on in droves to get that paper. "debt" is one thing, you probably understand "debt" when you are a kid... understanding loans however - is an entirely different thing from general concept of "debt"

qwytw 2y ago

Isn't most debt incurred by graduate students, especially those in med or law schools? Surely 4 years of higher education should be enough for someone to figure out basic maths?

stevenwoo 2y ago
Maybe, maybe not? This is hard to find via search, possibly due to graduate being inside the search term undergraduate. :) This shows the average total owed by graduate students is much higher than undergraduates, about 3x. https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/student-loans/average-student-loan-debt-statistics/ https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/student-loans/avera... So just spitballing here, if there are more than 3x undergraduates than graduate students, and the same number have loans, the undergraduate debt is higher overall. But then there's this showing the median being closer to only 2x different https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/18/facts-about-student-loans/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/18/facts-abo... The long rise of for profit undergraduate institutions until quite recently says it was extremely profitable to get students into debt for questionable education value, it's almost like payday loan shops, just preying on different segment of population. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2022/01/how-university-of-phoenix-failed-its.html https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2022/01/how-universi... I don't think traditional public or private four year universities are blameless, either, raising tuition to match this endlessly rising loans guaranteed by Federal government with spiraling administrative system costs. Even though the cost is high I thought in the USA the number of med school students is restricted to a very small number.
datavirtue 2y ago
My mom has a master's degree and couldn't plan her finances or retirement if her life depended on it.