Student Loan Forgiveness?

[Red Memories]

1. Do you think student loan forgiveness is necessary?

2. Do you think the government can afford to give student loan forgiveness?

3. How would you properly implement the forgiveness?

4. If you feel this plan wouldn't work, how would you offer reforms to education costs?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

i'm against it because it violates norms. j/k

1. Yes. also, would stimulate the economy because people would be able to spend more income. I can see people grumbling about this who probably get lots of tax deductions because of things like investments; I'd like those folks to justify to me why that's a necessary expense I should be paying for.

2. Yes. We're able to spend all that money on the military despite a deficit, and give people tax cuts despite a deficit, so it seems the deficit is not really as big a deal as some people would have you believe. If the deficit is in fact a serious consideration, it would mean Congress has been has been criminally negligent for decades; since this has pretty much been the sort of budgeting they've done for a long time now.

3. I think 50,000 bucks is a good place to start, as Chuck Schumer suggested.

4. Lower tuition for public universities. Lowering interest rates on the loans.

 

[Lark]

Universal Basic Income.

If people want to spend it on education then sure, something else then good luck to them. Either way. UBI.

 

[Virtual ghost]

1. Do you think student loan forgiveness is necessary?

2. Do you think the government can afford to give student loan forgiveness?

3. How would you properly implement the forgiveness?

4. If you feel this plan wouldn't work, how would you offer reforms to education costs?

I am not the kind of person you had in mind. However I finished my degree with 0$ in debt since the government paid for it. Since here that is simply a standard.
However in my book that is pretty important since it allows all kids to potentially get a degree. Plus once you end your education you have a clean start in life.
But this system is something that the people should protect and defend from defunding and similar stuff. Since that is the only way this works properly.

Universal Basic Income.

If people want to spend it on education then sure, something else then good luck to them. Either way. UBI.

So if they desire to spend it on drugs and gay prostitutes that is ok ? Or since we are talking about fairly young people how will you ensure that their family doesn't waste this money ?
There is a reason why here this kind of stuff is going through official institutions, since once you give people money into their hands there are absolutely no guarantees what will happen. What means that a visible percentage will go to waste if you want to give people money for education. While in the modern world leaving people without education inevitably leads into all kinds of problems.


For me UBI was always libertarian nonsense.

 

[Falcarius]

So if they desire to spend it on drugs and gay prostitutes that is ok ? Or since we are talking about fairly young people how will you ensure that their family doesn't waste this money ?
There is a reason why here this kind of stuff is going through official institutions, since once you give people money into their hands there are absolutely no guarantees what will happen. What means that a visible percentage will go to waste if you want to give people money for education. While in the modern world leaving people without education inevitably leads into all kinds of problems.


For me UBI was always libertarian nonsense.

Does the shareholder have a right to demand CEO's do drug test or not pay them if they test positive or if they see gay prostitutes?

Does the public get the right to demand all politicians who receive wage and CEO whose companies receive money subsidies or bailout allowed to demand drug test and written receipt for everything they ever spend money on?

If not, then why poor people and not rich people?

IBI has next to nothing to do libertarianism which is completely different to liberalism. In most pretty much every developed country there is already a Quasi-UBI for old people called a state pension, guaranteed minimum income through minimum wages and welfare benefits, Child benefit - hence it is not that radical doing it for everyone. The richer 70 or so countries could definitely afford universal basic income if they wanted to do so they choose not to do so.

 

[ceecee]

1. Do you think student loan forgiveness is necessary? Yes

2. Do you think the government can afford to give student loan forgiveness? lol Yes

3. How would you properly implement the forgiveness? Me personally? I paid my student loans off (About $28k) once I had a scholarship and I welcome debt forgiveness for others. I would assume a negotiated settlement would be paid to every student loan provider.

As far as I know, going forward, any of these proposals for higher education from people like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren only include public 2 and 4 year college and universities. The private elite places will still be elite, private and available to the wealthy just like they always have been. There would be no low income student scholarships or hoi polloi for them to contend with.

4. If you feel this plan wouldn't work, how would you offer reforms to education costs? After student debt is gone, the state AG's can go after every parasite connected with college cost - such as the book cartels. This is in addition to ending student debt.

 

[Falcarius]

As for the the OP:

Falcarius thinks it would be better if the number of courses were more linked the sort of jobs needed and those jobs were better funded through better scholarships and other improved private/public funding models. He has no problem funding things like like doctors, nurses, engineers, with public money; he does think people dinosaurs have to be realistic if it is worth getting in a ton of debit for lifestyle degree in the arts and humanities is really cost effective.

One should follow their dreams but make sure it is worth it first, before expecting the public or companies to bail them out.

Interestingly before Falcarius worked at one of the most prestigious universities, he was essentially in favour of free tuition but it kind of turned him off the idea. There were too many courses in subjects which didn't really benefit society and too many people who went there for the wrong reasons such as their parent told them they should. Hence, his opinion is much more nuanced now but this idea of encouraging people to get in debit and go to university for the sake of it is idiotic.

 

[Maou]

1. Do you think student loan forgiveness is necessary?

It would most assuredly help millions of people get off their feet, but the issue lies in the fact its a band-aid and not a solution. The cost of education should have never gotten this high to begin with, and interest on student loan is fucking satanic and should be abolished.

2. Do you think the government can afford to give student loan forgiveness?

In USA? Yes. Since USA has reserve currency status, it can just print what it needs it seems. The debt never mattered. Though, this is highly unsustainable.

3. How would you properly implement the forgiveness?

If I were to implement forgiveness, and not address any other problems it might cause. I'd just have the government pay off all the loans. But it would probably require something like being unable to get student loans anymore knowing them.

4. If you feel this plan wouldn't work, how would you offer reforms to education costs?

USA can easily crack down on the book cartels and the "for profit" price inflation (Its probably the administration costs, it always is). But I think part of the reason price inflation exists, is because of student loans. Back in my parent's youth, you used to be able to go to college on minimum wage. What changed and caused an inflation from then to today?

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

All government loans for education and small business should carry zero interest. State universities should be free

 

[Tomb1]

1. Do you think student loan forgiveness is necessary? if the borrower is dead...

2. Do you think the government can afford to give student loan forgiveness? they would have no choice

3. How would you properly implement the forgiveness?with a computer entry..."x is dead. therefore, all loans are forgiven"

4. If you feel this plan wouldn't work, how would you offer reforms to education costs? i think it would work

..

 

[Virtual ghost]

Does the shareholder have a right to demand CEO's do drug test or not pay them if they test positive or if they see gay prostitutes?

Does the public get the right to demand all politicians who receive wage and CEO whose companies receive money subsidies or bailout allowed to demand drug test and written receipt for everything they ever spend money on?

If not, then why poor people and not rich people?

IBI has next to nothing to do libertarianism which is completely different to liberalism. In most pretty much every developed country there is already a Quasi-UBI for old people called a state pension, guaranteed minimum income through minimum wages and welfare benefits, Child benefit - hence it is not that radical doing it for everyone. The richer 70 or so countries could definitely afford universal basic income if they wanted to do so they choose not to do so.

To be honest I am not sure what is your point, since we probably got lost somewhere in cultural differences. My point was simply that the benefits like education should be given through well defined system(s). Since otherwise you can't be sure that the people spent the money that was meant to cover the basics and benefits will indeed being spend on that. Plus cross population UBI that has visible impact demands huge amounts of money that usually comes from cutting all kinds of things in the government. Which is kinda key to keeping things under control in the terms of cost and having a system that is ready for foreign threats. Therefore for me textbook UBI is kinda libertarian in the bottom line since it creates the playground for deregulation. Since it provides money that should be spent in private institutions under fully free market. What I don't want since here government owns plenty of institutions that provide useful services and therefore all of that was payed with tax money. So if you force fast privatization in combination with UBI you are basically making sure that people pay twice. First setting up the institutions and then instead of cheap/free service you have to pay someone decent amount of profits as well. Because if government is providing stuff then you just get a service, while if you get money for benefits you were given that in order that private companies can provide them. Which are basically just a middle man that I don't need. Therefore for me the whole thing just has a feeling of libertarian financial scam.

 

[Falcarius]

To be honest I am not sure what is your point, since we probably got lost somewhere in cultural differences. My point was simply that the benefits like education should be given through well defined system(s). Since otherwise you can't be sure that the people spent the money that was meant to cover the basics and benefits will indeed being spend on that. Plus cross population UBI that has visible impact demands huge amounts of money that usually comes from cutting all kinds of things in the government. Which is kinda key to keeping things under control in the terms of cost and having a system that is ready for foreign threats. Therefore for me textbook UBI is kinda libertarian in the bottom line since it creates the playground for deregulation. Since it provides money that should be spent in private institutions under fully free market. What I don't want since here government owns plenty of institutions that provide useful services and therefore all of that was payed with tax money. So if you force fast privatization in combination with UBI you are basically making sure that people pay twice. First setting up the institutions and then instead of cheap/free service you have to pay someone decent amount of profits as well. Because if government is providing stuff then you just get a service, while if you get money for benefits you were given that in order that private companies can provide them. Which are basically just a middle man that I don't need. Therefore for me the whole thing just has a feeling of libertarian financial scam.

Falcarius is not totally sure why you correlate a universal basic income with privatising. On one hand post industrial developed countries like UK or the USA, don't really have anything left to sell off, so this is a mute point for most people reading this. The UK literally furlough half the country for 4 months this year and it is not going to be paid privatising anything. On the other side, it is kinda understandable as you live in a post-socialist Balkan country, where the countries are used to shock therapy and market fundamentalism.

If a government want to raise money they can raise taxes or make cuts or sell things off or even close tax loopholes or various other ways. Lot of developed countries interest rates are practically zero they could essentially borrow a shitload of money for next to nothing. America could probably fund a big part just from stopping policing the world and getting involved in idiotic wars. For some reason you seemingly have decided that it is essentially a zero-sum game so a government must have to sell things off to pay for any new projects like a universal basic income - perhaps maybe true in your country is not the case everywhere.

Falcarius thinks that some things are better ran by the state and some things are better ran privately, which is why every civilised country is a mixed economy to some degree. Where you seem to have this idealism that the government going to be necessarily better than business as running things.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Falcarius is not totally sure why you correlate a universal basic income with privatising. On one hand post industrial developed countries like UK or the USA, don't really have anything left to sell off, so this is a mute point for most people reading this. The UK literally furlough half the country for 4 months this year and it is not going to be paid privatising anything. On the other side, it is kinda understandable as you live in a post-socialist Balkan country, where the countries are used to shock therapy and market fundamentalism.

If a government want to raise money they can raise taxes or make cuts or sell things off or even close tax loopholes or various other ways. Lot of developed countries interest rates are practically zero they could essentially borrow a shitload of money for next to nothing. America could probably fund a big part just from stopping policing the world and getting involved in idiotic wars. For some reason you seemingly have decided that it is essentially a zero-sum game so a government must have to sell things off to pay for any new projects like a universal basic income - perhaps maybe true in your country is not the case everywhere.

Falcarius thinks that some things are better ran by the state and some things are better ran privately, which is why every civilised country is a mixed economy to some degree. Where you seem to have this idealism that the government going to be necessarily better than business as running things.

Well this shows pretty clearly that you never had a clear contacts with war and "real problems". When the government has to guarantee some things since there are no market conditions. So I am not idealistic at all. My country borders on 4 countries that even formally aren't really a democracy anymore and we already had wars between us. However since the global situation is getting worse and worse your country is also in this whole mix, since everyone is. So for me your approach isn't too wise when it comes to basic stuff/services.


My point was that if the government is giving you a service then it can just give you a service. While if you are getting cash on hands that kinda implies private institutions. Since if you give people just that and they right away give you back that is waste of everyone's time.

 

[Virtual ghost]

It was really late so I suppose I should get more into details.
UBI as temporary measure during serious crisis is more than ok measure, but as business as usual it just isn't that great in my book.



Here is military spending of NATO countries:

Now the question is does anyone really think that canceling this amounts of GDP in military spending and war would be enough to establish some kind of UBI that matter ? Even US that is overspending wouldn't really make that much of a difference with that percentage of GDP. Even if it is double than that it really wouldn't matter that much. Plus not to mention that with removing this spending you would be leaving the whole world to China and Putin. Plus since that includes resources the real economy would surely fall apart pretty quickly. While on the other hand if you want to give every US person 1000$ a month that isn't that big money you will end up with 12 000$ a year per person. What multiplied with population of 330 million turns out to be 3.960.000.000.000 $. What opens the question where will you get 4 Trillion $ for this measure, especially since public spending and money printing is already unsustainable as it. Where will you get this sum of money that is about similar size to the the WHOLE average federal budget without actually touching it ? Therefore you will probably undo various social program that already exist and you will remove various agencies which are hard to notice until they are gone. Plus if you reduce government programs it can easily happen that the new business as usual has higher prices. What quickly eats into all the smaller benefits you are trying to get from that 1000$ a month. What is the logic that works for pretty much all countries.





Another problem is just borrowing with low interest rates. Yes the interest rates are low but the real problem is how will you return the main part of debt. Since you gave it to people and there are no guarantees that they managed to do something with that money. Plus in order that government returns that money it has to tax that away from people, what is undoing UBI. Plus if you are taking loans without the desire to return them I am not sure who will give you money for something like this. What in the end leave you with mass printing that is already excessive and only adds to the so called bubble economy. Since the money isn't backed by anything concrete. Therefore when certain countries got off zero sum game logic this is when the whole system started to wobble and they ended where they ended. Therefore printing trillions every years just seems as a bad idea since you will only mess up the real economy on the long run.




So if someone wants UBI who am I to stop them, but for me the idea is just stupid.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Increasing access to education and medical care seem the most on point for helping a society. U.S. higher education is absurdly expensive. I support some student loan forgiveness and providing more access to higher education. I don't think a person has to get rich in their career to justify it either. Most meaningful and careers helpful to society are in the social services and arts which tend to correlate with low income. Helping people in these professions with student loan forgiveness would be wonderful. I support it.

I'd like some help paying back my two master degrees and doctorate. I don't make tons of money with it but have created great works of art performed by world class musicians in the highest classical orchestras in the U.S. I don't care if other posters don't value it because I know my contribution to society. Because I grew up in poverty and chose a creative arts profession I could end up homeless and in abject poverty when I'm elderly, even though I've spent my life helping hundreds of people. It would help a little to have some loan forgiveness.

 

[Coriolis]

1. Do you think student loan forgiveness is necessary?

2. Do you think the government can afford to give student loan forgiveness?

3. How would you properly implement the forgiveness?

4. If you feel this plan wouldn't work, how would you offer reforms to education costs?

I will answer 4 first, because it gets at the root of why we even have student loans to forgive. We need to make a serious overhaul of how higher education is funded in the US. Right now, higher ed is basically rationed based on ability to pay, or to get someone else to pay for you, just like with medical services. Implicit in this system is that both education and medical care benefit the direct recipient. They certainly do, but as the current pandemic should make painfully clear, individual health directly impacts public health. Even before COVID-19, the impact on workplace productivity of employees with unmet health needs was well documented.

The same goes for education. We all benefit from an educated population, who will in turn serve as an educated labor force as well as an educated electorate. (Yes, I realize much of this happens in the K-12 years.) By "education" I don't mean that everyone has to go to university. Pushing for that is misguided. We should instead expand other post-high-school options like apprenticeships and practical training (e.g. chef or cosmetology school).

But for those who do attend university, cost should not be a factor. As with medical care, we should ration higher education based on ability to benefit. Universities, departments, and programs should be more selective, but students who do make the cut should not have to pay. At all. The notion of admitting students with borderline qualifications but families wealthy enough to pay full cost needs to go. That just waters down the experience for everyone and devalues college as an experience. Of course education costs must still be paid. We can combine existing scholarship monies, and yes, increase taxes. "You get what you pay for" applies to societies as well as to individuals, and the generation-long (or more) trend to dismiss academic pursuits and devalue college education has not served us well. More and more we depend on foreign students to pursue education in especially the STEM fields needed to address our most pressing problems like COVID-19 and climate change. Nothing wrong with those students, but it is a sad state of affairs when domestic students either lack the motivation to study these fields, or lack the funding. This is one area where I had hoped Trump's "America first" strategy would make a difference, but I haven't seen it.

OK - so back to questions 1-3. College loans are the by-product of a pernicious and almost mean-spirited system. They shouldn't even be a thing. I would support loan forgiveness on the broadest scale possible, and would start the practical implementation with graduates in low-income jobs of direct benefit to others, e.g. in health care, counseling, social work, teaching, etc. I don't know if the government could afford it, so donations would be encouraged, from philanthropists who support education already, e.g. through scholarship programs, as well as from the finance companies who actually hold the loans. Would make great charitable deductions for them. Graduates in high-paying jobs or otherwise able to afford their loan payments could continue to pay and count it as a donation, too. So, there would be a triage system for forgiving loans based on available funds and most pressing need, until they become a thing of the past.

 

[anticlimatic]

Most student loan debt is held by upper middle class people, and "government" helping them out of course just means working tax payers helping them out, most of which are poor. Student loan forgiveness is yet another play to help the rich by squeezing the poor.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Most student loan debt is held by upper middle class people, and "government" helping them out of course just means working tax payers helping them out, most of which are poor. Student loan forgiveness is yet another play to help the rich by squeezing the poor.

Tax the top 10% to pay for student loans of the middle class. Voila! Your concerns are a m00t point. Actually you are supporting the positions that keep the people earning less that $30K a year fighting with the people making between $30-$200K a year. That is the fight the powers that be LOVE and you are stroking their tactics with your response here.

If you want to selectively help the lower income proponents of student loan, then focus on associate degrees and undergraduate degrees. Many people with some training are still in low income professions. Also, many traditionally working class (no higher education) jobs now require an associate degree, which at least that much should be free. Essentially high school training requires two more years with associates degree to have the same meaning as in the past. Student loan forgiveness is not the only issue, but providing more access to higher education for lower income people is also part of it.

 

[anticlimatic]

Tax the top 10% to pay for student loans of the middle class. Voila! Your concerns are a m00t point.

Forgiving student loan debt for the middle class would address a very small percentage of student loan debt. Be nice to see the middle class get some kind of break, but I am quite doubtful any of our fearless political leaders give a crap about doing something like that. It's going to be go big or go home, and I say go home.

 

[The Cat]

be more nice to see the poors get a break. for some of us middle class seems rich.