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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

#51

Post by overthemoon »

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…

Incredible how people like you consistently think high student loan debt is exclusively due to immoral choices.

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

#52

Post by seneca »

This is a slap in the face to anyone who made prudent financial decisions to get themselves through college without debt, and even more so to those who recognized they couldn't afford it and didn't go. Now they get to fund a bail out for the managerial class they couldn't afford to join and spend the rest of their life working for.

Let's see a plan to fix the system for everyone, not populist handouts for people who are already ahead.

This is also fixing the wrong problem. It removes the pain that generates pressure for real reform. Without addressing the ridiculous costs, this just props up the problem.

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

#53

Post by andonisus »

chrshawkes wrote: post #50
onetimemanytime wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is so baffling is that much of that debt was accrued as basic living expenses with extremely low interest rates, where the poor have to rely on 20% interest cards, but no bailout?

Why does it have to be a competition of loss? The student loan issue is something that should be addressed in and of itself. The constant whatabout-ism when it comes to the less privileged/wealthy (and especially when it comes to being a white male versus a PoC) is exactly what I am complaining about. It feels as if the middle class is constantly being told that our problems don't matter because we have just enough to do OK for ourselves.

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

#54

Post by pickle-wizard »

I personally am not a fan of canceling student loan debt. However what I am a fan of is lowering the interest rate to nearly 0.

I still have some of my student loans left and most of them at at 1.8%. However I have some friends who went to college after me and theirs are at nearly 7%. That just doesn't seem fair.

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

#55

Post by [deleted] »

rustybelt wrote: post #48
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'm a Bernie supporter and I agree. Make free college available to anyone and provide a path to discharge overly burdensome student debt via bankruptcy, but forgiving everything is a waste of resources and political capital. Though, I have to say, one of the things I like about Bernie is he doesn't start with half measures. He starts with the ideal vision, which is probably necessary to even get close to something re…

[deleted]

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

#56

Post by jqgatsby »

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 kind of excessive fixation on perfect fairness is exactly what got us into this mess. They thought they could help the poor attend college by giving them grants, then the middle class would have loans, and the rich had to pay their own way. Then it turned out that both the poor and the middle class had to take out loans because grants were too expensive, and the "rich" were fine anyway. Here's a crazy thought: if these debt holders are so well-off, why haven't they paid off their debts yet? Being in debt is a huge psychological burden, and forces people to choose high-paying jobs in expensive areas (which makes them appear to be well-off), instead of doing work that is more meaningful and socially beneficial.

It's good to remember in these situations that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and what Sanders is proposing has the advantage of maximum simplicity. If you listen to the advice of perfectionists like David Leonhardt, you're going to neither eat nor have your cake.

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

#57

Post by wrong_variable »

freewilly1040 wrote: post #43
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…

The system we have is not fine. Tuition has no downward price pressure and is rising way too fast. 10% cap is nice and all, but not if you’re going to be paying it through middle age. Blunt loan forgiveness is not the answer, but reform is needed.

> but reform is needed.

Sanders is the last person to do any reform ( real reform would come most likely from somebody like Andrew Yang ).

Education is first and foremost extremely political, almost everywhere and every country.

Milton Friedman knew it 40 years ago.

Letting a free market in education to exist would put a lot of service jobs at risk.

Education is how people who support a candidate get a job after elections are over.

Many prominent lieutenant and donors in the Democratic party end up in the educational sector, same applies in every other party in so many other countries it's unreal.

In Islamic countries, trying to reform education is much much harder than other areas. Everybody wants a say in what goes in the heads of other people's kids.

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

#58

Post by collidge »

andonisus wrote: post #53
chrshawkes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so baffling is that much of that debt was accrued as basic living expenses with extremely low interest rates, where the poor have to rely on 20% interest cards, but no bailout?

Why does it have to be a competition of loss? The student loan issue is something that should be addressed in and of itself. The constant whatabout-ism when it comes to the less privileged/wealthy (and especially when it comes to being a white male versus a PoC) is exactly what I am complaining about. It feels as if the middle class is constantly being told that our problems don't matter because we have just enough t…

If the government sent everyone a check for $20k, this would be more fair regarding your concerns and the concerns of those of us who are against forgiving student debt for the reasons in this thread.

It's not about a competition of loss; you're correct. But it's simply an expensive and unfair plan to forgive the debt of those who have it, without regarding why they have it. Either we take a more refined plan about how we forgive student debt, or we simplify even further and just give stimulus checks to everyone without any conditions.

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

#59

Post by GhostVII »

This seems like it would only make the student loan situation worse over time. Tuition is inflated because student loans are easy to get, so students are not very price-sensitive and are willing to go to expensive schools over much cheaper options. Forgiving student loan debt helps current students, but just encourages future students to accept even more debt with the hope that it will be forgiven.

We should be encouraging students to go to cheaper schools (state schools are far cheaper that out of state, and out of state schools are still cheaper than private schools), and bringing in legislation which reduces tuition. The US could bring in legislation to lower tuition at public schools (they are doing this in Ontario right now, which has a similar system), although this might have to be a per-state issue rather than national issue.

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

#60

Post by october_sky »

exabrial wrote: post #35

So, in summary, incentivize colleges to create even more worthles or overpriced degrees and education programs to vacuum free money from the federal government up.

This is the real issue. They should regulate college tuition and force them to decrease costs. And they should have done is 10-15 years ago.
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