Just to have some perspective, that's 40k out of ~40 million, or about 0.1%.
The cynic in me is already speculating on why/how that 0.1% was chosen ...
U.S. forgives 40k student loans
51–60 of 483 posts
Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is not giving out loans at all necessarily better? Stop giving out loans, and higher education becomes even more elitist and out of reach.
Or higher education institutions will consider if they really need the ever-growing bubble of useless administrators who empty their coffers.
Plus, colleges and universities will think twice about increasingly charging an egregious amount for tuition if people aren't willing to buy their product no matter the price.
Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans
#53My master plan is to eventually have 13 graduate level Master's degrees under my belt. Why you may ask? If one is enrolled as a full time "student", the student loan monthly payments are paused. Since, at least for me, I can handle being a full time Master student and also my full time remote-only job, this isn't an issue. The reason I am doing this is because there is $1.6 trillion in student loan debt; the governme…
Any of your masters programs cover the tragedy of the commons?
Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans
#54Please, please, please take note before commenting: These are being forgiven under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, created in 2007 (fifteen years ago), which eliminates your remaining debt after you've made ten years of payments while working in the public sector (government or non-profit). This has nothing to do with current debates around loan forgiveness.
That's where the 40,000 in the headline comes from. But the article also says this:
> Several thousand borrowers with older loans will also receive forgiveness through income-driven repayment (IDR) forgiveness, plus another 3.6 million borrowers will receive at least three years of additional credit toward IDR forgiveness, the Education Department said in a statement.
Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans
#55This NPR article goes more in depth about this: https://www.npr.org/2022/04/19/1093310151/student-loans-inco...
Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans
#56It's crazy to cancel student loans and still keep issuing the exact same loans. If we believe the loans are unjust then the government should stop handing them out as the very first step.
> the government should stop handing them out Minor nit: The gov't doesn't give the loans, they underwrite & insure the loans.
But there is a important point here too - these loans are issued with too low of an interest rate BECAUSE they are guaranteed by the government.
Drop that guarantee and the interest rate is going to float to more of a credit card level, which will make them prohibitive for funding tuition, which will put an extreme downward pressure on tuition rates.
Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans
#57They should require banks to forgive loans, rather than forgiving Federally-backed loans. If you require banks to forgive loans (or if you allow loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy), you create an incentive for the banks to loan money only for college education that results in useful careers. The Federal government is immune to market forces, so forgiving Federal loans just means you encourage the type of college…
Not convinced - a sensible bank will look at the likelihood of a person to get a good job after their education, and might conclude that while choosing Engineering over Art History is a factor, there are far stronger factors like
- parents wealth and social position - wealth of parents of peer group at the university - skin colour, gender - propensity for drug alcohol abuse in the family - heart and other medical conditions that might result in early death
We choose welfare insurance at the state level to avoid / correct these undesirable features of our current society, not to continues them into the next generation
Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans
#58It's crazy to cancel student loans and still keep issuing the exact same loans. If we believe the loans are unjust then the government should stop handing them out as the very first step.
> the government should stop handing them out Minor nit: The gov't doesn't give the loans, they underwrite & insure the loans.
Semantics, they should stop underwriting them.
Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans
#59[deleted]
Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans
#60I know every European seems to ask this of every American but what is the resistance to a welfare state? if you look at a government as investing in its citizens like a VC fund, then providing education and medical care is sensible, and some will turn out fine and others will be Bezos and then you can get your investment back via tax. I am honestly trying to avoid the flame war here - but I do it know how else to fra…
We don't want others not like us to get benefits, especially if it's paid out of a common tax pool. Even if it's not, if we're not eligible for the same benefits. The US population has had decades (almost centuries) of us vs them politics within the country.