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Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt

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Re: Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt

#31

Post by toomuchtodo »

aristophenes wrote: post #28

Just imagine if that amount of money was spent on updated infrastructure. Effective country wide mass transit, better ports and airports. And the money spent would flow right into the economy and circulate over and over, would push construction companies and techniques forward. Or towards clean energy generation, storage, and use. How fast would oil and coal be completely replaced? And again, money pumped into the ec…

Please show your work that infrastructure spending would generate more growth than forgiving over a trillion dollars of student loan debt.

I don't discount it might be possible, but I am asking you to prove it if you're stating it as fact. No imagining.

Re: Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt

#32

Post by kasey_junk »

benj111 wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #6

This is welfare for upper middle class people. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/opinion/student-debt-forg... > “Education debt,” as Sandy Baum and Victoria Lee of the Urban Institute have written, “is disproportionately concentrated among the well-off.” The highest-earning quarter of the population holds more than a third of all student debt, while the lowest-earning quarter holds only 12 percent, according to Baum…

I'd kind of expect richer people to be more likely to go to college, and also be more likely to have the contacts to get a well paying job. On that basis I would expect this to benefit the lower middle class, they accrued the debt without accruing the earning potential.

Sort of the point is that it’s not needs based. It doesn’t matter if you make 400k with 100k of debt or 36k with 6k of debt.

Fairly clear one of those 2 is getting a much better deal.

Re: Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt

#33

Post by AnimalMuppet »

anm89 wrote: post #13

I can't find this mentioned, is this only federal loans held by the government or would this involve forgiving privately held debts. The first seems reasonable. The second seems terrifying.

"Forgiving privately held debts" sounds an awful lot like "taking (stealing) from the lender". That probably would not pass a Supreme Court review. (No taking without just compensation.)

Re: Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt

#36

Post by kasey_junk »

lawlessone wrote: post #19
rayiner wrote: post #6

This is welfare for upper middle class people. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/opinion/student-debt-forg... > “Education debt,” as Sandy Baum and Victoria Lee of the Urban Institute have written, “is disproportionately concentrated among the well-off.” The highest-earning quarter of the population holds more than a third of all student debt, while the lowest-earning quarter holds only 12 percent, according to Baum…

>This is welfare for upper middle class people. Maybe more lower class people would go into this if they could afford it?

We don’t need to do debt forgiveness to do that. We could just fund future tuition.

One of the selling points of the universal policy is that it’s the only way to get the votes of the well off but resentful, even if it’s staggeringly inefficient.

Re: Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt

#37

Post by yifanl »

lostmymind66 wrote: post #24

This will not fix the problem with colleges pumping out useless degrees. They got their money up-front, don't have any consequences, and the taxpayers get to foot the bill. Why not fix the root of the problem? This solution will only serve to enrich the universities and not get them to change their behavior.

What policy change that could be implemented would do anything about the societal belief of college = job?

Even something as extreme as outlawing job listings from listing college degrees as a requirement probably wouldn't do it. It'd just become a "soft" requirement.

Re: Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt

#38

Post by onetimemanytime »

andonisus wrote: post #27
rayiner wrote: post #6

This is welfare for upper middle class people. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/opinion/student-debt-forg... > “Education debt,” as Sandy Baum and Victoria Lee of the Urban Institute have written, “is disproportionately concentrated among the well-off.” The highest-earning quarter of the population holds more than a third of all student debt, while the lowest-earning quarter holds only 12 percent, according to Baum…

This plan cancels all student loan debt; It does not matter what percentage of income-earners hold the debt. God forbid something nice happen for the middle class. It's really tiring to have scraped by, worked hard to get where I am, and be told I'm JUST privileged (white, male, income) enough to not qualify for any sort of government assistance.

Why just student debt though? People have a right to complain. Someone has no student debt but credit card debt.

Re: Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt

#39

Post by educationdata »

rayiner wrote: post #6

This is welfare for upper middle class people. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/opinion/student-debt-forg... > “Education debt,” as Sandy Baum and Victoria Lee of the Urban Institute have written, “is disproportionately concentrated among the well-off.” The highest-earning quarter of the population holds more than a third of all student debt, while the lowest-earning quarter holds only 12 percent, according to Baum…

No. It's also not fair to raise taxes (on rich and middle class) to pay college for poor kids.

It is fine to have certain amount of transfer from the rich and middle class to the poor to pay for basic things, but pay for college should not be part of it. College is not crucial for living a good life.

I would agree with proposal to support pay for vocational / professional training. But college? No.

Re: Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt

#40

Post by joshypants »

Any time there's a proposal like this, it's disappointing to see the conversation gravitate towards tit-for-tat zero-sum appeals to fairness, instead of asking: how can we spend money in ways that will create wealth and other less tangible benefits for society? Making education accessible to everyone is one of the best things we can do.
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