Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
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Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
#2I think the best context to this is this earlier discussion of similar analysis:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/06/is-student-debt-cance...
Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
#3[deleted]
Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
#4There’s no need to measure anything. The problem with student loans is qualitative.
Banks are allowed to make unsecured loans and the borrowers can’t usefully declare bankruptcy. Colleges have every reason to raise prices and lenders have no skin in the game.
It isn’t any more complicated, and no amount of data analysis can possibly refute this.
Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
#5I think the best context to this is this earlier discussion of similar analysis: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/06/is-student-debt-cance...
Two points on that discussion:
- AFAICT, the argument that a massive loan forgiveness would not be regressive rests entirely on excluding from the analysis low-income members of the 25-40yo cohort with no student debt. Sure, that fraction may be smaller than in the past, but it’s hard to see how discounting a bunch of poor folks who would see $0 benefit from this expenditure is intellectually honest.
- It’s amusing to see a left-wing analysis complain about policy benefits being described in absolute dollar amounts when it’s a doctor making $250k having $50k of his medical school loans forgiven. As I recall, every tax cut debate of the last 20 years has featured charts in absolute amounts showing the tens of thousands of dollars the average 1%’er would save, not the relatively small fraction of income that represented.
Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
#6There’s no need to measure anything. The problem with student loans is qualitative. Banks are allowed to make unsecured loans and the borrowers can’t usefully declare bankruptcy. Colleges have every reason to raise prices and lenders have no skin in the game. It isn’t any more complicated, and no amount of data analysis can possibly refute this.
It hasn’t been “banks” for a decade: Student loans today are overwhelmingly supplied directly by the federal Department of Education. That’s why a huge jubilee is even plausible.
Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
#7There’s no need to measure anything. The problem with student loans is qualitative. Banks are allowed to make unsecured loans and the borrowers can’t usefully declare bankruptcy. Colleges have every reason to raise prices and lenders have no skin in the game. It isn’t any more complicated, and no amount of data analysis can possibly refute this.
If data showed that at regional state universities and community colleges the rise in tuition corresponded with the decrease in public funding per student then you wouldn’t believe it? Or that such data would mean nothing to you? Consider the linked article and keep in mind that enrollment in higher Ed has declined since 2008.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-hig...
Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
#8I think the best context to this is this earlier discussion of similar analysis: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/06/is-student-debt-cance...
Two points on that discussion: - AFAICT, the argument that a massive loan forgiveness would not be regressive rests entirely on excluding from the analysis low-income members of the 25-40yo cohort with no student debt. Sure, that fraction may be smaller than in the past, but it’s hard to see how discounting a bunch of poor folks who would see $0 benefit from this expenditure is intellectually honest. - It’s amusing t…
The situation is an entire generation of kids from one point forward were systematically misled about the sure thing security of the benefits of taking a student loan investment vehicle in order to secure their education. When the financial sector was misled about the same regarding "secure" mortgage backed securities in 2008 they were completely bailed out - despite being the sophisticated investors that should have known better.
To allow the same for entire generations of students affects our society - causing declining birth rates, poorer health outcomes, poorer life quality. And why? To enforce fiscal discipline that we have not enforced even on sophisticated actors that systemically made a poor choice?
Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
#9There’s no need to measure anything. The problem with student loans is qualitative. Banks are allowed to make unsecured loans and the borrowers can’t usefully declare bankruptcy. Colleges have every reason to raise prices and lenders have no skin in the game. It isn’t any more complicated, and no amount of data analysis can possibly refute this.
It hasn’t been “banks” for a decade: Student loans today are overwhelmingly supplied directly by the federal Department of Education. That’s why a huge jubilee is even plausible.
My original argument still stands.
And the government was perfectly capable of bailing out private companies at the end of Bush Jr’s second term.
Re: Student loan forgiveness is regressive measured by income, education, or wealth
#10There’s no need to measure anything. The problem with student loans is qualitative. Banks are allowed to make unsecured loans and the borrowers can’t usefully declare bankruptcy. Colleges have every reason to raise prices and lenders have no skin in the game. It isn’t any more complicated, and no amount of data analysis can possibly refute this.
If data showed that at regional state universities and community colleges the rise in tuition corresponded with the decrease in public funding per student then you wouldn’t believe it? Or that such data would mean nothing to you? Consider the linked article and keep in mind that enrollment in higher Ed has declined since 2008. https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-hig...
It’s a good question. I would be interested to know which economic forces drove the price changes.
I suspect that prices could still increase even in spite of public funding decreases due to the point in my original post.
But to me, all of these side effects can be thought of as fruit from a poisonous tree, and thus unjustified.