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U.S. forgives 40k student loans

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#421

Post by 7speter »

jatone wrote: post #399
LimaBearz wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The previous guy installed people in the DOE that made it virtually impossible to forgive the loans even after they jumped through all the hoops to qualify under the law. All Biden's administration is doing here is ungumming people who were eligible years ago. This is cleanup from the prior administration

I'm aware. and but these things are being trotted out by people as 'look hes (biden) done so much!!' when in reality: hes done jack shit except what already is suppose to happen! I promise you biden's PR group is the force behind these articles.

As demonstrated by the last admin it doesnt have to happen so feel free to complain about the current President doing “jack shit” until the last guy wins the next election…

Sometimes keeping promises are important.

Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#422

Post by vnchr »

guhidalg wrote: post #126
vnchr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I’m concerned about our government’s track record of mismanagement and infighting that is detached from the needs of the people. Without that implicit trust, giving them more power is a general concern. Speaking geopolitically, the US military is the most powerful force in history including present day and our economy is the largest globally, which makes us coveted by those who seek to wield power for the…

> I’m not trying to equate welfare with tyranny, of course. But that's exactly what your first paragraph did, at least in the case of the US. Why do you think welfare "works" for Sweden and would not work for the US? Is Sweden tyrannical?

Expanding government power isn’t inherently tyrannical. But tyrants expand government power for their own benefit.

There’s nothing inherently tyrannical about bread or circuses (unless you’re gluten intolerant or fear clowns). Are you familiar with the use of bread and circuses in the Roman Empire?

“The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.”

Besides that, I think I already addressed your point if reread with good will.

Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#423

Post by godelski »

rootusrootus wrote: post #405
godelski wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So first off, remember that the people taking out the loans are typically between 17 and 20. I don't know about you, but when I was 18 I was a fucking idiot. I mean I still am, but more so back then. I would be surprised if you weren't (and you probably aren't even the median case!). Also consider that a lot can happen in 4 years, especially at that age. Your interests typically rapidly change, you learn more about w…

The age argument is an interesting one. Should we be redefining what the age of majority is? Because if 18 year olds aren't competent enough to make borrowing choices for college, it follows that there are plenty of other consequences they shouldn't face.

The barrier is always complicated. There's also other issues, like financial literacy. I come from a upper middle class and still fell prey to the "fixed interest" claim. I'm pretty sure kids from families less well off are going to fall prone to even more egregious predatory tactics. It gets complicated really fast because one of the major goals we want from education is it to provide a means to climb the socioeconomical ladder. If we use predatory tactics in any form, then we're biasing towards targeting those people even more. Beyond that, with age, it is hard for an 18 year old to conceptually understand a 10 year loan. I'd argue that you don't start to understand that magnitude till 30 (You've lived 10 years as an adult). But that's way too late to take out a school loan.

The problem comes down to a simple one and I'll put it in the form of a question (this question generalizes to a lot of other areas too btw):

Is a deal/agreement fair when one side has an elite team of lawyers and psychologists and the other team has a high school degree?

I honestly think this is a question a lot of us, especially working for big tech companies, need to internalize and address. I'm not sure there are any easy answers either, because whichever side you fall on (I'm assuming people will say "{yes,no}, but..." instead of a strict black and white answer) there are nuances that are going to play major roles and tip the scales. I'll hint at my personal answer by saying I agree with Blackstone.

As to the question of "bail us out so we can participate in society" I think that is a little different. I think the problem is that the structure has rapidly changed and become out of hand. Incentives were misaligned. We tried to create a system where everyone could get the means to attend college but that incentivized an environment that creates predatory lending and increased financial obligations (upwards of 1k% increases). There's clearly something wrong with the system. I think many people claim to have the answers but I'm sure these are all far too naive. Something this complicated isn't going to have trivial solutions.

Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#424

Post by 31098347 »

newfriend wrote: post #296
omegaworks wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would rather your children continue to suffer the burden of a system that forces people into limited opportunities simply because you had to? So much for making the world a better place. The course that you took in life failed to teach you a fundamental truth about how a society grows.

> forces people into limited opportunities No one was forced to do this. > So much for making the world a better place. The course that you took in life failed to teach you a fundamental truth about how a society grows. Idealism is great for virtue signaling. The reality is that rewarding bad behavior and punishing good behavior does not lead to a healthy society.

[flagged]

Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#425

Post by sgerenser »

sgjohnson wrote: post #221
HeyImAlex wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the 1.6 trillion in debt was divided evenly among every human in the US it would be 4k. If we’re ball-parking and say that the top 20% of earners would foot the bill it’d be about 64k per household.

Why should the top 20% pay for it?

Because the top 20% pay the majority of federal income taxes.

Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#426

Post by greedo »

ch4s3 wrote: post #414
greedo wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Govt Reps get elected for a lot of things. Maintaining our roads, bridges and infrastructure are always buzzwords during elections. 2. Your link to Brookings just reinforces the issue. For profit schools account for 10% of students, borrow more often compared to public school students, and borrow more money. The Fed link shows that these students default more; they also are higher in pure dollar terms when it come…

> Govt Reps get elected for a lot of things. Maintaining our roads, bridges and infrastructure are always buzzwords during elections. You're arguing against conventional political wisdom wrt the US, so I think the onus is on you to provide a better argument than sometimes the conventional wisdom is wrong. > Your link to Brookings just reinforces the issue. For profit schools account for 10% of students, borrow more o…

The only reason that income tax is the primary source of revenue is because of the cap on payroll taxes that allows the rich to avoid paying as much as the middle class.

Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#427

Post by greedo »

nostromo wrote: post #419
greedo wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Govt Reps get elected for a lot of things. Maintaining our roads, bridges and infrastructure are always buzzwords during elections. 2. Your link to Brookings just reinforces the issue. For profit schools account for 10% of students, borrow more often compared to public school students, and borrow more money. The Fed link shows that these students default more; they also are higher in pure dollar terms when it come…

> That's what the rich want, and since they largely control Congress, that's what they get. Your argument isn't self-consistent. You're arguing both that: 1. the federal government is a competent force for good and should be strengthened. 2. the federal government is corrupt and controlled by the rich. The only way this is a consistent argument is if you're a plutocrat.

The Federal government CAN be a force for good and should be strengthened, but it also suffers from corruption and outsized influence from the rich.

Por que no los dos?

Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#428

Post by mardifoufs »

7speter wrote: post #421
jatone wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware. and but these things are being trotted out by people as 'look hes (biden) done so much!!' when in reality: hes done jack shit except what already is suppose to happen! I promise you biden's PR group is the force behind these articles.

As demonstrated by the last admin it doesnt have to happen so feel free to complain about the current President doing “jack shit” until the last guy wins the next election… Sometimes keeping promises are important.

Have fun blaming the "last guy" for almost everything, that sure worked out so far for the "current guy's" approval rating and will definitely not help the last guy win if he was to try again. This is even more ridiculous than even the "thanks Obama" reflexive blaming conservatives had.

I don't think you realize how self defeating and ineffective it is to find every tiny reason to deflect blame from "your team". Saying that "actually.... Biden couldn't do it because of some officials in the DoE and totally couldn't have known that this was possible when he made the promise, oops!" is such a cop out. It's obvious that the Biden team knew exactly how the DoE worked, and if x or y promise is feasible or not.

Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#429

Post by fortran77 »

frumper wrote: post #369
fortran77 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares about the top 50 schools? I went to Hofstra University, graduated with no debt (worked while going there and commuted by bus!) and I did just fine. I’ll be damned if I’ll subsidize someone else’s 4-year country club experience at a “top school”. Noting terrible will happen if only kids with rich parents went to them.

https://www.hofstra.edu/admission/cost-attendance.html If you can earn $53k plus living expenses in after tax dollars all while going to school then you are not the typical college student. Someone would be subsidizing your education if you get out of that debt free.

No taxpayer subsidized my education.

Re: U.S. forgives 40k student loans

#430

Post by daveoc64 »

blippage wrote: post #166

I'm a UK guy in my 50's. I went to uni (the US term for college) in '83. At the time I was in the minority of the population. I was given a grant of £3000pa and was able to make ends meet. I might have lived in, shall we say, the most salubrious of environments, but I emerged without debt. Same thing when I did my masters and PhD a few years after that. I basically caught the tail end of uni, when it was for the mino…

Of course, the current UK student loan system has several features that make it far more favourable to students than the USA:

-Tuition fees are capped at £9250 per year (approx $12,100), even for prestigious universities. A typical degree in the UK lasts for three years.

-An additional loan is available for living costs. The amount available varies based on household income.

-Loan repayment is linked to earnings. You only need to repay while you're earning £27,295 or more per year. If you're unemployed or on a wage below that, you don't have to pay anything back, so the debt is much less likely to cause financial hardship.

-Repayments are typically automatically deducted from wages (for workers who are salaried and only have one employer), so there is little admin involved in payment (the repayment rate is 9% of the salary above the £27,295 threshold).

-Loans are written off 30 years after graduation. It is predicted that most people won't actually pay off the loan, so it's seen by many as a sort of "graduate tax".

Some downsides:

-The interest rate is very high (especially given the current inflation rate), and interest starts building up while a student is studying.

-Even if the repayment terms are favourable and should be seen as a "graduate tax", rather than a loan, it's still the case that people will have a debt for 30 years of their career.

-A lot of the loans look set to be written off (as people won't earn enough to pay them off). This cost is met by the taxpayer.

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