Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

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RunningMn9
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Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by RunningMn9 »

So I keep seeing this pushed on Twitter that one of the biggest things that President Biden could do to stimulate the economy / provide pandemic aid, without Congress is to forgive some/all student loan debt.

I’m trying to understand this one, and I feel like I must be missing something. Collectively, folks in the US currently owe about $1.6T in student loan debt.

I read an article from October of this year that broke down who owes the college debt:

No degree - 8%
Associate’s degree - 7%
Bachelor’s degree - 29%
Master’s degree - 36%
Professional/Doctorate - 20%

That’s not shocking in the sense that if you went to school for more degrees, you likely took on more debt to do it.

Presumably that $1.6T is owed to someone. Who? I think the answer is “us”, but I’m not 100% positive on that. The numbers I saw suggested that in 2009, almost all loans were held by private lenders. By 2016, that number flipped and now the federal government holds almost all of that debt. From 2009 to 2016 the amount of consumer debt held by the Feds went from less than $150B to about $1T, all due to the Affordable Care Act apparently.

By September 2018, student loans accounted for 36.8% of all US government assets.

What are the practical impacts of vaporizing some/all of those assets?

I know that I have some extreme philosophical conflict with student loan forgiveness in this manner. Student loans aren’t an unforeseen hardship like loss of job, or unexpected medical emergencies. Students intentionally incurred this debt.

They chose it voluntarily. I’ve got a hard time forgiving a willful decision like that.

What am I missing in all of this that makes it a good idea?
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by noxiousdog »

The poor graduate students are allegedly burdened with so much debt they can't contribute to the economy. They can't buy cars or houses or go on vacation. Allegedly.

It's one of those things that sounds great on paper, but when you dig into it, it doesn't make much sense.

I did like Biden's initial plan: work for the public good and we'll forgive (and by forgive that means taxpayers pay the loan) up to 50k.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Smoove_B »

RunningMn9 wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:38 amWhat am I missing in all of this that makes it a good idea?
I think it's the broad, general assumption that vacating student debt will instantly put all those monthly loan payments back into the economy and/or allow people to have better living arrangements (buying homes, moving, etc...) I don't know how or why that's a belief, but I think that's the core.

What I'd (personally) rather see is load modification/forgiveness for individuals involved in public service or volunteer work. Public school teachers, civil engineers, doctors or nurses that work with charities or community service organizations. Whatever.

Also, if you look at the breakdown, there's a significant amount of loan money tied up in advanced degrees (more than half). I think that speaks more to your point on voluntary debt. Forgiving loans associated with a 2 or 4 year degree is one thing. I don't think advanced degrees should necessarily be included with that.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by LordMortis »

RunningMn9 wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:38 am I know that I have some extreme philosophical conflict with student loan forgiveness in this manner. Student loans aren’t an unforeseen hardship like loss of job, or unexpected medical emergencies. Students intentionally incurred this debt.

They chose it voluntarily. I’ve got a hard time forgiving a willful decision like that.
:oops: That's me. :oops: Of course, I think higher education costs are out of sync with everything else, and depending on how you pursue loan forgiveness, it will only drive them further out of sync. See medical costs for an example of what happens when you progressively divorce the paying for a thing out of pocket from the value of that thing.

At the same time, the cost of higher education of all sorts, even doing it "right" is such a barrier to "the have nots", that something's got to give. I'm all for loan forgiveness through community service, as example of a potential path to navigate toward a better today though I'm not an expert on such things and it's been a long time since I actively paid attention to the now of education and its costs.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by stessier »

RunningMn9 wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:38 am They chose it voluntarily. I’ve got a hard time forgiving a willful decision like that.
This is where I'm currently at as well.

I haven't done much research at all because I never really thought this was a serious proposal. The few of the people I've listened to said the crushing debt (their words) keeps them from participating in other parts of the economy like buying a house or a car, etc. All I can think is, uh, yeah - that's how debt works.

I have seen some arguments that debt should be forgiven for the HBCUs as a form of reparations. I can kind of see that argument, but am not sure that is the best method for that policy.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Wiping out $1.6T in debt is a bad idea, however well intentioned.


Well intentioned bad ideas got us into this mess. Easy-to-get, low rate loans meant anyone could "pay" tuition so tuition kept increasing. Increasing tuitions meant more debt. Federal bailouts of the private loans meant no downside to issuing or taking on this debt.



The first step is to get Devos the fuck of there. Then see what's what. Making promises like $50K loan forgiveness is a bit premature.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Jaymann »

Beau of the Fifth Column was saying the high cost of education is essentially class warfare - keep the poor people out.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Smoove_B »

Also a lesson to remember - there isn't one right way to forgive loan debt:
In a viral editorial last year, Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner argued that Warren's plan to cancel the debt of up to $50,000 for more than 42 million people, or roughly 95% of those with debt, would be "tremendously unfair to those who have been struggling for years to pay off their student loans." He argued that politicians should feel sympathy for "those who may have taken higher-paying jobs they didn't necessarily want to pay off loans. And there are those who have cut expenses to the bare bones to pay off loans while watching their friends with similar salaries eat out and travel and deprioritize paying off loans."

He concluded, "Those who were more responsible will feel justifiably enraged at the idea that those who may have been more profligate will now get a bailout from the government."

Klein's editorial received considerable backlash, with people on Twitter commenting sarcastically that his logic was akin to saying "Free pizza in the HuffPost DC office today. What a slap in the face to those of us who have already eaten" or "Child labor regulations a slap in the face to children who worked in coal mines." Kathi Valeii of The Independent denounced Klein's argument as a "self-centered, mean-spirited 'by-the-bootstraps' mentality." Jessica Young of Medium wrote "implementing a plan like Warren's is not a slap in the face. It's a way to remediate the economic costs of higher education for those who need it most, especially for a generation who was strongly encouraged to go to college and take on risky student loans, with the unfulfilled promise of that it will all pay off in the long run. It is righting a wrong."
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by LordMortis »

Jaymann wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:58 am Beau of the Fifth Column was saying the high cost of education is essentially class warfare - keep the poor people out.
I would agree with this message. Of course, I worked my way through college, working my ass off at an "affordable" university, living with my parents (for which I had to fight for an exemption the university did not want to give me) and I did it at a time when the cost of higher education was not completely out of touch with the ability of a working student, living with his parents, with in state tuition, at a lesser university's ability to pay for his education. I mention this because at EMU in the 90s, there was definitely a difference between the working commuting students and the full time campus students and it already smelled of the beginnings of class warfare then.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by noxiousdog »

If it's class warfare, that means we should increase subsidies to low income families, not wipe out Ivy league school debt.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by stessier »

Klein has a point, but it boils down to it not being fair. Life isn't fair.

So rather than outright forgiveness, what might work to accomplish policy objectives? I can see kids getting dumped into this economy really being behind the 8-ball. How about forgiving the interest? Could just be a blanket forgiveness, or maybe not charging interest as long as payments are made on time?

As I recall, there is already a 6 month deferral on starting to make payments after graduation - what about extending that to 6 months after the vaccine is widely available?
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by LordMortis »

noxiousdog wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 12:14 pm If it's class warfare, that means we should increase subsidies to low income families, not wipe out Ivy league school debt.
I prefer increasing the opportunities for avenues toward education through things like community service/work study/apprenticeship, but yeah, that's where I'm coming from with my now legacy understanding of continuing education.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Jaymann »

Given the makeup of Congress, there may be hope for Ivy League debt forgiveness.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Defiant »

Given that, IIUC, cancelling student loan debt is something that Biden could actually do via executive order, I think it's likelier to happen than some of the other goals of the Biden administration.

Anyway, given the failure of congress to get any meaningful stimulus passed for half a year in the middle of a pandemic, I'd be absolutely fine with cancelling $10K student loans debt for anyone with an income less than $100K.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

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Jaymann wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:58 am Beau of the Fifth Column was saying the high cost of education is essentially class warfare - keep the poor people out.
Yeah, I saw that video last night and was going to link it here. It's an interesting perspective, as usual from him.

Also, yesterday I was corresponding with a nursing student who has $140,000 in student debt (and counting). Can you imagine how long it will take her to pay that off on a nurse's salary? When I was at public university in the 1970s, a full semester's tuition was in three figures. Adding room & board barely brought it over $1,000. Most of us got our bachelor's degrees without debt. I can't even imagine graduating with six-figure debt.

Education is a public good, in the sense that we all benefit from a better-educated workforce.

Ah, here's Beau.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by noxiousdog »

Kraken wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:01 pm Also, yesterday I was corresponding with a nursing student who has $140,000 in student debt (and counting). Can you imagine how long it will take her to pay that off on a nurse's salary? When I was at public university in the 1970s, a full semester's tuition was in three figures. Adding room & board barely brought it over $1,000. Most of us got our bachelor's degrees without debt. I can't even imagine graduating with six-figure debt.
That's begging the question though. Nursing school only costs $140,000 if you want it to. "Most students will probably pay around $35,000-60,000 for a BSN at a state college."
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by pr0ner »

While I personally disagree with student loan debt forgiveness (especially if it's either a blanket policy or for those with advanced degrees), this is definitely a platform more liberal Democrats have taken.

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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Yojimbo »

If we are going to publicly fund higher education on a mass scale, it would need to focus on those areas that our society needs ahead of time. Like taking grants to study medicine with an agreement to spend 5 year working in rural communities where the need is greatest.

For me to run up 6 figures of debt pursuing my self-directed advanced degree in early typesetting technology and then, after the fact expecting my neighbors to pay it off with me seems inherently like an encroachment upon their liberty.

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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

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noxiousdog wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:05 pm
Kraken wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:01 pm Also, yesterday I was corresponding with a nursing student who has $140,000 in student debt (and counting). Can you imagine how long it will take her to pay that off on a nurse's salary? When I was at public university in the 1970s, a full semester's tuition was in three figures. Adding room & board barely brought it over $1,000. Most of us got our bachelor's degrees without debt. I can't even imagine graduating with six-figure debt.
That's begging the question though. Nursing school only costs $140,000 if you want it to. "Most students will probably pay around $35,000-60,000 for a BSN at a state college."
Without knowing more about the specific situation, it sounds like incredibly bad decision making. I don't know, maybe there's a good reason why a person would spend 4x market rate on school, but I can't think of one.

Slightly disorganized rant follows, the point of which is that higher education is kind of a scam for most people:

Thinking back to when I went to college - the assholes nickel and dime you for everything (e.g. overpriced textbooks where you use about 5% of the contents that just happen to come out with a new edition every year which adds nothing meaningful - it's not like the basic principles of whatever subject change *that* frequently), not to mention the legions of worthless degrees that get handed out where the kid didn't actually learn anything. Sure, that liberal arts school out in the mountains looks nice, and the academic subject matter is fascinating, but it's expensive. Can't afford it? Everyone and their kid brother can apply for a FAFSA loan or whatever. So now you've got a kid with 140k in debt racking up interest and working at a Mickey D's because nobody's actually going to hire someone with a degree in 13th century British literature.

I guess the question is, does falling for a scam mean that a kid deserves to have to spend 20-30 years with basically the equivalent of a home mortgage (minus the benefit of actually owning a house)? I'm not sure I'd make that call.

Then again, debt forgiveness is only a stopgap measure. It's not like those diploma and loan mills are going to stop taking advantage of dumb kids any time soon. Maybe the next generation's parents will be a little more cynical about it. I know I am. But am I going to be able to stop my kids from making stupid decisions? I doubt it.

Maybe there's something to be said for the European model of education.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

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Yojimbo wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:40 pm If we are going to publicly fund higher education on a mass scale, it would need to focus on those areas that our society needs ahead of time. Like taking grants to study medicine with an agreement to spend 5 year working in rural communities where the need is greatest.

For me to run up 6 figures of debt pursuing my self-directed advanced degree in early typesetting technology and then, after the fact expecting my neighbors to pay it off with me seems inherently like an encroachment upon their liberty.

Tell me how far off in the tall grass I am.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Archinerd »

My wife and I have useful Master's degrees in Architecture (graduated 2004) and we still have 50k in student loan debt.
The Great Recession was not kind to the architecture profession, and I have a feeling the Pandemic isn't going to be so great either.
Money wasn't the only factor, but major life milestones were absolutely delayed.

Maybe ALL student loan debt shouldn't be forgiven, but there are worse ways to spend the money. For instance, a 20 year war in Afghanistan seems like it may not be a great investment. Or tax breaks for the richest person on the planet.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by noxiousdog »

Nick, that's going to be the problem with debt forgiveness. It does nothing to stop the real bad actors ie the colleges and banks.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

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noxiousdog wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 2:23 pm Nick, that's going to be the problem with debt forgiveness. It does nothing to stop the real bad actors ie the colleges and banks.
I just looked it up. When I started at Virginia Tech in 1998, tuition and fees were just under $3600. Today? Almost $14000. Almost a 400% tuition increase in 22 years!
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by RunningMn9 »

stessier wrote:Klein has a point, but it boils down to it not being fair. Life isn't fair.

So rather than outright forgiveness, what might work to accomplish policy objectives? I can see kids getting dumped into this economy really being behind the 8-ball. How about forgiving the interest? Could just be a blanket forgiveness, or maybe not charging interest as long as payments are made on time?

As I recall, there is already a 6 month deferral on starting to make payments after graduation - what about extending that to 6 months after the vaccine is widely available?
I don’t think it’s about life not being fair, outside of wanting to know why we would be considering a solution that outright rewards risky behavior like this.

I do get that Biden is going to be limited by Congress, and somehow he can do this without Congress (not sure how, especially for those saying the taxpayer will pay the loan off).

But it just seems like there has to be more productive avenues, even if it requires working through Congress.

I’m more than receptive to the argument that the cost of college is absurd and likely isn’t worth it in some cases, but if you are a student that just had to go out of state to West Virginia University for the experience of it all, and signed up for soul-crushing debt to bank roll it...like, I don’t care if that’s hard for you and it means that you can’t buy a house or a car.

I’m really not getting the argument that as a taxpayer I’m supposed to double down and pay for you to be able to buy a house and a car too.

I don’t need additional stimulus, so if that’s targeted towards people that need it, I get that, and I’m not concerned about fairness in that regard. But this? This sticks in my craw.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

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noxiousdog wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 2:23 pm Nick, that's going to be the problem with debt forgiveness. It does nothing to stop the real bad actors ie the colleges and banks.
Agreed. It needs to be part of a pretty tough and comprehensive batch of reforms, which, if I'm being honest, I don't expect to see, mostly because of how entrenched said bad actors are.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by malchior »

I'm not for loan forgiveness in a "blanket" fashion - mostly there are serious edge cases to consider like people who took on debt that fell in the extremes - such as the ND example above. People should be responsible for some basic pro/con analysis. However, there is a mountain of data showing that there is a legitimate problem here. On the hard data side, people in their 30s are far behind in household formation, they have far less wealth han previous cohorts. Current "millenials" have about 5% of wealth while boomers at their age had ~20%. This is a function of more debt (almost all school debt) than previous cohorts. It's a real problem. And loan forgiveness, public service, and other options need to be on the table but this is a problem that is going to bite us in the ass eventually.

They happened to graduate high school when education demand far exceeded supply and costs were very high relatively. And then they walked face first into an extremely challenging economic period. Many graduated into the Great Recession and the sluggish recovery. They partially rebounded from that over time to have the pandemic hit them. Many of us are older and well-established and don't have the same exposure to the downturn. It is hard for us to even imagine the lives they've lived in comparison.

So here are some anecdotes because I've been close to this issue for a long-time. I worked in education for about 10 years and had about 50-60 students work for me. I've kept in touch with many of them and my wife still is in contact with others as well. I can say with certainty that they lived a very different life from almost everyone here. These kids didn't go to a super expensive college and they didn't make bad choices. The work marketplace wasn't what it was supposed to be for them.

As a very specific anecdote, my wife was lucky to have scholarships so she was relatively debt free. However, upon graduation in a degree in a hard science she has earned far less than what I have in her working lifetime. Heck until 2 years ago she had a lower annual income than I did in 1999 *without a degree* working at a state college in a technical role. At something approaching the 25th percentile for my job title at the time. She finally passed that 1999 salary in nominal dollars in 2018. When I left that job in 2007, I made more than what she makes now. I worked in a hot field so there is more going on but I saw this wholesale across an entire cohort.

I knew of a comp sci graduate from that school who earned less than 30K for 5 years incident to the great recession. I knew several others that chased master's degrees because they were told that was what they needed to do to be competitive. Some went on to med school and are ok obviously. Many others are essentially treading water. I've also hired dozens of college graduates into technical consulting and even outside the big cities they all lives 2-3 to an apartment with roommates because housing is very expensive.

I know a guy who got pushed by his consulting firm to go get a Master's Degree (they kicked in maybe 20%) and at the end of the journey they laid them off in wake of the Great Recession. They're at my firm now. 14 years into their career and making essentially...what I made in nominal dollars in 2008. In IT Security Consulting. I make 2.25 times as much as him. I don't know what his loan status is but my firm added a loan assistance program as a benefit to help pay down debt and he participates in it.

Anyway, the point is that as much as we want to moralize this, this is a big systemic problem and like other issues the longer we ignore the worse it is going to bite us.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Kraken wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:01 pm
Jaymann wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:58 am Beau of the Fifth Column was saying the high cost of education is essentially class warfare - keep the poor people out.
Yeah, I saw that video last night and was going to link it here. It's an interesting perspective, as usual from him.

Also, yesterday I was corresponding with a nursing student who has $140,000 in student debt (and counting). Can you imagine how long it will take her to pay that off on a nurse's salary? When I was at public university in the 1970s, a full semester's tuition was in three figures. Adding room & board barely brought it over $1,000. Most of us got our bachelor's degrees without debt. I can't even imagine graduating with six-figure debt.

Education is a public good, in the sense that we all benefit from a better-educated workforce.

Ah, here's Beau.
My issues with his take on this one is that he makes the "it's not fair" argument out to be a class battle between graduates without student loan debt vs graduates with debt. That's not the full picture.


What about those without and degree and no student loans? Those that didn't pursue a degree because they couldn't afford it. They often have the lowest earning potential and bleakest future. How does changing the rules mid-game affect them? Certainly it widens the gap.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by gameoverman »

RunningMn9 wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:38 am...What am I missing in all of this that makes it a good idea?
The way I look at ideas like this is from a purely dollars and cents perspective. If forgiving the loans pays off in the long term, then I say do it. I don't care if philosophically it sends the wrong message. I don't care if people who paid back their loans get mad(I'm one of those who paid them back). I don't care if it bothers people because it's against the idea of being a responsible adult. I don't care if people deliberately took out so much in loans that any halfways non stupid person would have known it's a bad idea. All I care about is will it benefit the country in the end?

If it can be shown that there is no reason to expect any net gain for the country, short term or long term, then I'd be against it.

I'm still not clear on how it's supposed to work, so if anyone can point to a good 'pros and cons' write up I'd appreciate it.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Blackhawk »

I went to college for a year and a half before I had to take a semester of (legitimately) for a family emergency, then life got busy and by the time I was able to go back, the factors that led to me filing for disability were in the way. Net result? I'm 15,000 in debt, with exactly zero chance of paying it off in my lifetime on a disability check. From the time I was 20 (when I started) until the day I die, I will never know a time when I'm out of debt, and it will always be a hole in my credit rating.

But, as others have said, I made that decision. I chose to accept that debt. I didn't know the mess that life would bring, but I don't expect it to vanish on someone's good will, either.

Although if it does, I certainly won't complain!
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Jaymann
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Jaymann »

Blackhawk wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 5:52 pm I went to college for a year and a half before I had to take a semester of (legitimately) for a family emergency, then life got busy and by the time I was able to go back, the factors that led to me filing for disability were in the way. Net result? I'm 15,000 in debt, with exactly zero chance of paying it off in my lifetime on a disability check. From the time I was 20 (when I started) until the day I die, I will never know a time when I'm out of debt, and it will always be a hole in my credit rating.

But, as others have said, I made that decision. I chose to accept that debt. I didn't know the mess that life would bring, but I don't expect it to vanish on someone's good will, either.

Although if it does, I certainly won't complain!
You should start a crowd funding for, I don't know, mac n' cheese or something. $15k seems a reachable goal.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Blackhawk »

Jaymann wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 6:07 pm
You should start a crowd funding for, I don't know, mac n' cheese or something. $15k seems a reachable goal.
I've done crowdfunding once, and that was only because it was something that had a significant impact on my kids.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Z-Corn »

We pay $400 a month on my wife's student loan and will for years. If that was forgiven I promise I would immediately buy a new car. Maybe even a Tesla.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by noxiousdog »

Z-Corn wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:23 pm We pay $400 a month on my wife's student loan and will for years. If that was forgiven I promise I would immediately buy a new car. Maybe even a Tesla.
And this is what pisses me off.

I'd like a Tesla too; but I have a mortgage. I'll pay your loan if you pay my mortgage.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Z-Corn »

noxiousdog wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:43 pm
Z-Corn wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:23 pm We pay $400 a month on my wife's student loan and will for years. If that was forgiven I promise I would immediately buy a new car. Maybe even a Tesla.
And this is what pisses me off.

I'd like a Tesla too; but I have a mortgage. I'll pay your loan if you pay my mortgage.
OK, maybe just a Subaru then? I've got a mortgage too and I just refi'd to make sure the mortgage will live longer than me.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Little Raven »

I don't understand why we would focus on Student Loan Debt exclusively.

If the idea is economic stimulus...why not just give poor people money? Why tie it to student loans?
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by noxiousdog »

Z-Corn wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:54 pm
noxiousdog wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:43 pm
Z-Corn wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:23 pm We pay $400 a month on my wife's student loan and will for years. If that was forgiven I promise I would immediately buy a new car. Maybe even a Tesla.
And this is what pisses me off.

I'd like a Tesla too; but I have a mortgage. I'll pay your loan if you pay my mortgage.
OK, maybe just a Subaru then? I've got a mortgage too and I just refi'd to make sure the mortgage will live longer than me.
I don't know what a Subaru costs. I do know I never bought a car that cost more than 23k until last year.

FWIW, I'm faced with a conundrum. My kids are about to go to college. We are looking at affordable state schools and community colleges depending on major. Or, I could say fuck it. Roll in the debt and let the rest of y'all pay for it. That's the sensible thing for me right now, isn't it?
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by malchior »

Z-Corn wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:54 pm
noxiousdog wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:43 pm
Z-Corn wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:23 pm We pay $400 a month on my wife's student loan and will for years. If that was forgiven I promise I would immediately buy a new car. Maybe even a Tesla.
And this is what pisses me off.

I'd like a Tesla too; but I have a mortgage. I'll pay your loan if you pay my mortgage.
OK, maybe just a Subaru then? I've got a mortgage too and I just refi'd to make sure the mortgage will live longer than me.
This is the argument in a nutshell. Tons of data saying entire cohorts are having massive problems with student loans and a bunch of people who want to turn it into some morality tale. Cool story but it doesn't change that many people are struggling with this and it is driving populism on the left. But let's scold away. They'll just make due.
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Little Raven wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:58 pm I don't understand why we would focus on Student Loan Debt exclusively.

If the idea is economic stimulus...why not just give poor people money? Why tie it to student loans?
If someone has student loans and credit card debt, certainly high interest credit card debt should be forgiven before low interest student loans, right?
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Defiant »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 8:18 pm
If someone has student loans and credit card debt, certainly high interest credit card debt should be forgiven before low interest student loans, right?
Can government "forgive" debt to a private entity?
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Re: Student Loan Debt Forgiveness

Post by Little Raven »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 8:18 pmIf someone has student loans and credit card debt, certainly high interest credit card debt should be forgiven before low interest student loans, right?
Definitely. Moreover, if we just gave poor people money, we would give money to ALL of the people that need money, not just the ones with student loan debt.

And I'm totally open to the idea of giving people money. I'm just confused as to why would only give money to people who went to college.
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