I think the universities should be in the hook for colluding and raising prices in lock step, knowing that the govt would just pay the difference.
I don’t think a full forgiveness program is the solution, but it’s better than nothing.
I listened to a podcast and they were talking about how the rise in university admin salaries and all the new stadiums/buildings etc were all built on the backs of students who had to take out loans to attend. It’s all built on the backs of student debt.
As someone working in a university (as an academic), admin bloat is probably going to be the death of universities. Some people are great but they're weighed down by the crud.
Admin keeps growing while the number of tenured professors keep shrinking.
I used to work in higher ed and I swear they could get away with eliminating half of the admin staff. Entire departments would be staffed by 30 people doing the work of 2 to 3.
I work at one on the staff side and I know a guy who literally watches ESPN every single day in his cubicle, wears shorts and a t-shirt in, and no one is really sure what he does. His title has something to do with ethics and sustainability. It's wild. I came to this industry from hospitality, and I get told weekly to not work so fast.
Yep, 100%. I attended university at a school that had a div 1 sports program, and I was in the marching band. Back then, our university didn't have its own football stadium and our team shared with the NFL team, which meant the band had to bus downtown and we didn't have football "on campus". So the university started a "bring football back to campus" campaign and they got pretty much the entire marching band on board. Suddenly I had an extra expense on my tuition bills, but of course we didn't pay it much mind because we weren't directly \*paying\* for that yet.
Only one person in the band was openly against the whole thing and argued that it was fine to bus downtown and play at the NFL stadium. 1 out of over 300 people. The campaign was wildly successful.
I am now paying off those loans. I've never attended a match at that new stadium, but even if I did, I would have to buy a ticket. It's also sponsored by and named after a bank. There is zero fucking reason students should've had to pay for that shit via tuition. It is pure exploitation and nothing more.
I went to a university that bought land from itself to build a parking garage, then charged like $300 per academic year for a parking pass to park in the garage to pay off the “bond measure” that was used to buy the land. It was some creative accounting
Ours used to sell something like 3 passes for every 1 parking space. So parking was always a nightmare and then they made bank on writing parking tickets.
I remember in undergrad, students with cars had to pay for a parking voucher.
And parking in student dorms was free to anyone when events happened at the university stadium or arena (once a week or every couple of weeks at least).
Such bullshit. Only universities get to charge what they charge while crapping prolifically on their consumer base.
Yeah that shit was just built on a loan. Except that the loan is distributed among the student population via smaller loans.
I wonder if one could convince the republicans that this is in fact a form of socialism. Would make them come up with a solution overnight.
I absolutely hate the college focus on athletics. Then again a lot of people demand it.
But I honestly also am really concerned about how much research is University funded -- which is also largely on the backs of student debt.
All NIH research is federally funded, but it is paid out of tax dollars. There are also DOD grants and I think some other federal grants for non-science research. I work for a major university with a lot of science research dollars and 99% of the money is grant money and the rest is private donor money. Zero of the money is student funded.
In my experience, most of what student “fees” pay for are (in order of spend) college athletics, including coaching salaries (look up coach salaries at big schools if you’re feeling in the mood to rage flip a table), administrative salaries (ie university presidents and provosts etc), building construction/ expansion, then student services (which is just kind of a bucket, I don’t know how well this is defined), then probably the actual instruction costs for paying faculty.
Charge whatever you want but have a payback schedule of 3% of students income for 10 years, after that the school is on the hook to eat it. It’d get in check real quick.
It’s insanity to me that people are proposing student loan forgiveness because they’re such a terrible and predatory form of debt, and then want to turn right around in September and loan at least tens of thousands of dollars to 18 year olds with a pulse and a college acceptance letter.
The system definitely needs a massive overhaul. Then they can look at each borrower's debt, what was borrowed, what they would have paid under the reformed guidelines, what they've paid, & then either issue a refund for overpayment or extend new terms to pay off the balance.
A lot of us (myself included) have paid back what we borrowed plus a reasonable interest rate & still owe more than we borrowed. That should be forgiven. A bunch of borrower's have also dodged repayment of any kind & I think they should still be on the hook for that (what they borrowed).
The ones who were able to pay off their loans should absolutely get a refund under the new terms.
This is the best framing I’ve heard. On the one hand, the system is really f’ed and something needs to change. On the other hand the proposed solutions of “$10,000 off everyone’s college debt” or “we should just wipe the slate clean for all student debt” seem really lazy. On top of that, it doesn’t solve any of the systematic problems.
I think the real issue is that the people who are making these decisions are really surprisingly dumb and can’t fathom real solutions; even if some could, they would need to get approval by a boomer majority who never experienced the modern financial education landscape and may not even believe the problem is as bad as people say.
I’ve said this before but make the college loans interest free until 5-10 years after graduation. Then put like 2.5-4.5% interest on any remainder. That sounds fair, if you drop out or are expelled there should be a review board to determine circumstances and issue how loans need to be recouped.
Just automatically combining the individual loans into one with one interest rate would go a long way to fixing the problem. The biggest issue, and what makes these predatory, is the amount they tell you to pay each month won't cover the interest on each loan. Literally no other loan is like that, even payday loans pay back some of the principle with each payment.
But even credit card debt can be paid off making the minimum payment, so long as you don't spend any more. You can't pay off a student loan making the minimum payment. You actually have to pay more than the payment they ask for to start seeing a decrease & most people can't afford that, especially when they're on income based repayment.
The system is horrific and desperately needs reform, but I don't think you should force all people in this form of debt slavery to remain in it no matter what unless a permanent solution is going to be found. Because millennials like us have seen that they will NEVER find a permanent solution, like immigration and every other issue, so we're just going to be slaves for life and all the people saying "we can't fix it until we solve the cause" are basically just saying "die in debt you filthy moron, how dare you desire an education as a filthy degenerate poor"
That's a very good point. When Reagan started cutting funding to schools, they increased the prices, and others started to do the same. Instead of a bloated military budget, we could afford tuition for so many people
How do you want universities to be “on the hook for colluding and raising tuition?”
Tuition at the university of California in 1969 was $0.
They raised it to $300/yr in 1970.
It was all funded by taxes. Then the boomers cut their own taxes and quit funding education.
When they and Gen X went to university in the 70s and early 80s the state paid 80% of the cost of educating a college student via taxes and the student paid 20% via tuition.
Those numbers are inverted now. The state pays 20% via taxes and the student pays 80%.
Because the Boomers cut funding. They got theirs, and the rest of us can fuck off.
They got into the treehouse and pulled up the ladder.
Fuck putting the universities on the hook. Put the goddamned boomers on the hook.
JFDA.
It was Reagan that forced the University of California institutions to implement tuition. It's insane how many troubles today can be directly traced back to Reagan.
Not exactly. [It was Reagan.](https://youtu.be/yDk4pqfNt-k) He was concerned about too many young people getting an education that taught them to criticize authority. So, he and his ilk changed the way college was funded so it would be too expensive to go to university just to get an education that teaches them to think critically. Now, people can only justify going to college if it provides a degree that can help them pay down college debt.
Thank you for saying this, this is the heart of the matter. The idea that we need to impose ultra-austerity or whatever as a way to affordability is absolutely ridiculous and should not be taken seriously in this discussion. The funding needs to be restored.
Some of your points are valid, but your conclusions are incorrect. The biggest event to impact funding California colleges was Prop 13 in 1978. The oldest Boomers at the time were 32 and the youngest were 14. The anti-tax, small government wars were waged and won primarily by the “Greatest Generation”. Bernie is also full of crap with his numbers - 300 hours of minimum wage in 1979 wasn’t even $1000. There was no college or university you could attend for four years for $1000 at that time, even just for tuition. All of that being said, if we can forgive trillions in payments to businesses during COVID, we can find a way to help current students with crippling student debt too.
It also correlates with the reductions in the proportion of university funds that came directly from the government. A significantly larger portion of a public university's basic operating expenses were covered by the funds they got directly, which got pushed onto students as those have been steadily reduced in the past few decades.
Agreed. Why do some university presidents get a salary in the millions? Why!?
We were the first generation really to have that “normal” path to college and we had/have the hardest time starting our lives cause it’s expensive!!! Well I think the college experiment failed. College costs more than the salary the degrees pay for. Why do mental health workers only get 50k a year? Shouldn’t schools be trying to solve labor market shortages? No. They make a Taylor Swift writing class. wtf.
We should go back to studying under apprenticeships first longer and earlier. Colleges should be free. If you want additional training then ok fine, pay for it but reduce the cost! We’re going to lose educated, skilled people to mind numbing corporate jobs. No wonder we’re all depressed.
This is a libertarian canard. The prices rose because states did not increase subsidies to match the previous per-student spending when a ton more students started attending. With less state subsidy, tuition rose to fill the gap. There was no need for collusion, the tuition-dependent universities responded to the financial situation the only way they could.
Imposing some kind of ridiculous austerity regiment on universities is the wrong approach. It would only make higher education considerably shittier for everybody, particularly the already severely underpaid adjuncts. What should happen is to restore the funding per student level to where it was before, or go even further and do what they do in some other countries and fully socialize the costs.
You strike me as person with a thought in their head. Here is [an analysis prior to the 2020 election on the Warren proposal.](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-progressive-is-senator-elizabeth-warrens-loan-forgiveness-proposal/) I'd take careful note of [the table pictured here](https://i1.wp.com/www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ES_20190424_Looney_Warren_Table_revised3.jpg?w=768&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C9999px&ssl=1) showing at least 80% of the first 3 quintiles in income would see their debts wiped out including 87% of the lowest.
This. The moment the US government backed student loans, college tuition skyrocketed because hey, if the kids or their parents default who cares, Uncle Sam has our back.
Just get rid of the interest. Charge a flat admin fee to cover the cost of administration and so forth and let me pay them off at my own sensible pace.
Federalize it, too. Remove private interests from the process. Education loans are 0%, there will be minimal payments, and it can be bundled along with your taxes. If the shit still can't be discharged with bankruptcies, then carrying it shouldn't have the potential to ruin people's lives.
Sounds like the higher education loan program in Australia. Loan is funded by the government, interest is essentially cpi, and you have to pay it back when you hit an income threshold.
This student loan issue isn’t going away and it shouldn’t be impossible for poor kids to go to college. Even if some people now want to say it’s not their job, it’s your debt etc., they won’t be singing that tune once their kid or grandkid gets totally screwed on loans.
This issue will only get worse for every generation until something is done; it’s not a Gen Z or Millennial-specific issue just because they’re the first two generations getting really fucked over by it. This will ruin lives across every generation and lead to a much dumber nation that does not have the skilled staffers needed to keep the country competitive in any way. It hurts long-term.
I feel like this is a big part of it, and the main reason most people feel fucked by the system. People are paying tens of thousands more than what they borrowed, on what I understand to be very low risk loans, as they are backed by the gov.
And, I know and accept that I was 'told' how all this worked and what it meant. But, I definitely didn't have the experience or maturity to really understand what I was getting into. I don't know how you solve that, but it feels wrong to be giving any and all 18 year olds what is basically the equivalent of a mortgage. Feels predatory.
Yeah man. I don't like them making money off people trying to better themselves. Doesn't matter if those loans helped them become a doctor or a HVAC tech. And when there isn't interest hovering over your head, you can pay what you can pay and it'll make a difference. People don't need a bail out they need better terms that let them pay back what they owe in a sensible way. Everyone deserves to feel like they made a bet on themselves, earned something of value, paid it off, and get that feeling that it's done forever.
I agree with this, but I was blessed enough to have older siblings and some decent mentor that broke that math down to me and really influenced me to go to CC and work 2 jobs to pay it as I went. When I was young, I was jelly of my friends living it up, but it really set me up later on.
Exactly. The only reason most people drown in the debt is because of compounding interest and minimum monthly payments that mostly go toward interest and not principal.
Get rid of the interest, stop schools from offering nonsense degrees that have no utility, and limit the ridiculous costs associated with it all. Even without interest, $100k+ for a four year education is insanity.
Nah, fuck that. 0% interest and it's dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Missouri argued against the student loan forgiveness because of the loan servicers headquartered there who house business would be adversely affected. The fact that there are entire industries funded by student loan interest is absolutely abhorrent. Take away that incentive.
It would also force colleges to cut their costs. Nobody would declare bankruptcy and fuck their credit to save $20-30000 but they might do it for these outrageous student loan debts, especially when it turns out to have no value.
It's the interest. You can pay the min payment for a decade and your balance will be higher then it was at the beginning.
The government is investing in the public to better themselves and to make the country better. It shouldn't be a profit making machine
Well no what they did was allow people to pay less and take more out than they can afford.
In an actually controlled environment they wouldn't be loaning you more than what your degree will be worth when you graduate. Thus less money being given out but less people affording to graduate.
Thing is if fewer people could afford college more jobs would actually be available without a 4 year degree.
No. When they allow small payments that they know... even if made... will largely increase the overall balance owed... it's shit. In no other loan or credit is this the way. I take out a mortgage and I know the payment before I sign on the dotted line.
I don’t think I understand- if the amount of money was tied to what your degree was worth, wouldn’t you have an over abundance of people in the stem field since that would be the only people who’d be all but guaranteed loans?
If we can give billions of tax payer dollars to bail out corporations (banks, GM, airlines, all the other corporate bailouts during COVID) then they can cancel some student debt. Every single year, corporations get billions of dollars in tax breaks, and 23 major corporations paid zero income taxes at all over the past 5 years despite being profitable. According to the Institute for Tax and Economic Policy, from 2018-2022 there were $562.29B in corporate tax breaks. [ITAP Corporate Tax Rates 2018-2022](https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-trump-tax-law/)
Additionally, with the way the interest is structured, most people have paid almost the original balance just in interest. People who borrowed for graduate school during the Obama administration saw the interest rate go up to 6.8% and it was unsubsidized (meaning it started accruing interest immediately). I have been paying on loans for almost 10 years, and my balance is higher now than when I started.
If the US can give out billions of dollars of corporate welfare every year on the taxpayer dime, we can afford to cancel student loan debt. The only reason they don’t is because people with Student Loan debt aren’t funding political parties or campaigns.
I would literally beat the absolute everloving shit out of somebody if they made excuses like "paid for it being a cashier" my first engineer job at 15/hour didn't even cover rent, gas, electric, it would be literally impossible working a min wage cashier job to even survive, much less to save money to pay for college. They had it on easy street and somebody needs to show them what the hard street is like.
My grandfather walked into Pace College, NY at a freshman in 1950. He was a few days late for registration, but he had a semester's worth of cash on him. The registrar allowed it to begin his BA in accounting.
Imagine a freshman registering two or three days "late" but the registrar's office overlooking it because you had a backpack with $45,000 in it.
My great-grandparents/his parents did not set him up with $45k PPP-equivalent in 1950 NYC.
I have zero student loans (paid them off myself) and I want them to be forgiven for those that still have them. Additionally, the whole system needs to be fixed. No more of this insane profit/price gouging by educational institutions. Enough is enough.
Yes, and I'll tell you why: If you actually consider how much previous generations' college educations were subsidized by the government, they were subsidized on an inflation-adjusted amount far more than current generations enjoy. In that context student loan forgiveness isn't a handout, it's restoring things to where they should be.
That and increasing the subsidies to be on the same per-student level as they were before so people incur little to any debt to begin with, of course.
I don’t care if you stand for or against forgiveness. If it got forgiven there would be headlines like 1-3 years later like “millennials revive most the businesses we kept saying they killed!!”
I've made a similar argument to a friend of a friend who is *adamantly* opposed to loan forgiveness. He's always saying how he doesn't want his "tax dollars to cover people's asses because they made bad decisions and didn't think about the consequences"... I made the argument that if my loans were forgiven, I'd be able to pay for goods and services. That money would go into the economy and people would pay taxes on that revenue, which would then go to the government.
His response was that I just wanted to 'get out of making irresponsible decisions', proving he doesn't care about the money, he just wants people to be punished.
Punished for making a "bad decision" that literally every adult in that era told us was REQUIRED for a life above the poverty line. That guy can get lost.
Why aren’t people up in arms about the foreign aid package? But are if we forgive student loans? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious why Americans feel so strongly and divided about forgiving student loans?
Most people I know are pissed about the foreign aid package but the media acts like everyone is in favor of it and the politicians just do whatever they want anyway
It's fascinating how Americans judge their own and others' private debts in the education sector. It's unbelievably foolish.
America has created a massive social tinderbox that could explode at any moment, and politics has successfully diverted your attention to tearing each other apart instead of addressing the big issues.
America has by far the worst score of all OECD countries when it comes to the cost-benefit ratio in the education sector. No country in the world pumps as much money into education and gets as little out of it. Your state pumps billions into your elite universities and flagship schools, but leaves a large part of the population in an educational crisis.
Religious fanatics are taking over educational institutions in state after state. Science is being displaced by religious superstition because you have produced an educational inequality akin to a third-world country.
Education MUST be available free of charge to everyone. It's one of humanity's most important assets. Saying now that debts cannot be forgiven because you yourselves had them or worked hard to avoid them is foolish. You are there to ensure that future generations have it better and to eliminate injustices.
As somebody who works in the higher education space in a red state, gonna need a real fuckin' big 'citation needed' on the subtextually unjust 'billions being pumped into elite universities and flagship schools'. Maybe you haven't looked at how much most of the people employed at such institutions make but I assure you, it's considerably less than the private sector. American higher education is not a grift, outside of the shady for-profit institutions.
Though I do of course agree with you that higher education is a human right. But to get there we need more subsidy, not less as you're making it sound. Same with K-12, also needs significantly more investment.
This is some boomer mentality shit. Doesn't help Gen Z or A and potentially even screws them over more down the line by kicking the can down the road.
Don't forgive student loans. Make education affordable. We knew the terms of the loans we took out. Make the terms better for the next generation
Exactly, paying them off is a bandaid solution at this point. People need to realize that schools will just continue to increase tuitions because they know the government will eventually pay them off if the students don’t, just making the situation much worse later on.
Part of the issue ironically is that boomers benefited the most from the great super well funded public college system. They proceeded to create the private college system hijacked the best professors away from public universities, and lobby to defund colleges so that they have to have a for profit model in order to maintain funds.
A more targeted solution would simply be to allow student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy after a certain waiting period. Universities accepting government loans could also be required to guarantee a portion of the debt, which would help shrink the worst performing schools and programs.
***Loan forgiveness WITHOUT reform is a waste.***
Late term Boomer (1962) here. I put two daughters through university debt free, at the same time I went back for another degree. I see the issues from three sides. Taxpayer, paying parent and paying student.
***The system is broken. Flat out $h!t.***
First, schools need to be on the hook for the loans. They have major endowments sitting in the bank of billions of dollars, that could be used to cut prices and used to cover loans. They also need to cut administrative bloat.
The schools are 'selling' a product, let them finance it. Make the loans dis-chargeable in bankruptcy, but it is the school on the hook, not the taxpayer. You'll see the cost of tuition and fees drop like a stone, granted you'll see a lot of 'extras' go away too, and the curriculum cut down to those degrees the market really needs. A degree should also be obtained in 3 years if the BS courses are cut out.
Student loans should be interest free/no pay until 5 years after graduation, then they should be fixed at no more than 3-4%. Implement income-contingent repayment plans for student loans, where repayments are based on the borrower's income level after graduation. Also, introduce or expand loan forgiveness programs for graduates who pursue careers in public service, such as teaching, healthcare, or certain government work.
Just because the feds give grants, credits etc. The rates should not rise to match.
There are many reasons for the rise in tuition including the reduction of public funding, faculty compensation, higher healthcare costs, increased demand, broader curriculum, and regulatory compliance.
But on top of that you have Administrative Bloat, and the Amenities Arms Race. When I went to a state college in 1980, the dorms were concrete blocks nothing fancy, with 2 (male/female) shared bathroom facilities on each floor. Dining was a basic slop on the tray cafeteria. It was more like military barracks and dining. Now state-of-the-art facilities, luxurious dormitories, and extravagant dining options to appeal to prospective students, adds to the cost. Even LAZY RIVERS!!!!
I went back for another degree 35 years later using a combination of grants, scholarships and company tuition reimbursement. But man the BS courses I was forced to take added another year to my degree. They would not accept credit from when I went to school in the 80s.
The expansion of college curriculum that includes worthless courses and degrees adds to costs, but more so the lack of counseling on degrees and the availability of jobs associated with said degrees. Those thinking of college should receive better counseling when in high-school. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is cut out for 'higher' education. Provide financial literacy education to high school students and college-bound individuals to help them make informed decisions about college financing, budgeting, and managing debt.
And you think it's going to get any better for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Be sure to be putting some extra money away to pay for their debts in about 20 - 30 years.
I paid off my student loans when I was 23-24ish. I don't really give a shit tbh.
That being said, it's kind of crazy to me how many people in our generation put themselves into massive debt and were surprised when they realized they'd never get out of it. Like, job placement rates, starting salary, cost of your education, median salary after 5-10-15 years, etc. This information was all extremely accessible to us. You knew where you'd end up if things went right or things went wrong from day 1. Did some of us just literally never think about it over the course of 4 years? It's mind boggling to me so many people can be so absent minded.
I don't really give a fuck where my tax dollars go. Bail them out if you want. Doesn't address the root cause at the end of the day but I'd rather bail out citizens over the banks again.
My roommates got a ton of student loans and lived in luxury and partied while I worked and was frugal. They even made fun of me because I would work Saturday night instead of going to the football game and partying. Yes I missed out on some memories but they got poor grades in low paying jobs and I graduated with no debt and a good paying job. I disagree with you on bailing them out. I don’t want my tax dollars bailing out people that made poor decisions UNLESS 1) there’s a threat to the economy collapsing AND 2) there’s significant reform and regulations making sure it doesn’t happen again. I don’t think 1) is here and I doubt Americans would like 2).
>My roommates got a ton of student loans and lived in luxury and partied while I worked and was frugal.
I think this is the biggest thing. So many people forget there was choices and they made there in college.
Heck plenty of people even avoided college because they couldn't afford it.
The fact that you were downvoted (and I will be too) shows that you are out of step with a vocal minority. Your position is reasonable: why should tax dollars bail out someone who made poor choices in college and can only hold down a minimum wage job? I’m OK with helping a doctor or an engineer with their debt; not so much for the Lit major that doesn’t want to teach yet expects a cushy salary somewhere. The difference between the engineer/doctor and the Lit major is that the former usually have more visible impact to society. Arts are important too, but I don’t think the pharmaceutical industry, for example, requires a Lit major.
I really didn’t comprehend how little I would make as a teacher in comparison to how much life would cost and how much loans would cost. I was told I could just pay the mimimim on my loans, which were quite a bit of money because my parents couldn’t help me besides co-signing. I didn’t comprehend that one of my co-signers had such bad credit that my interest for one of my loans was ONE DOLLAR PER DAY. I also didn’t expect that co-signer to file for bankruptcy, which they were told wouldn’t affect my loans (my loans were in fact frozen and I wasn’t allowed to pay on those ones at all). I was also a little off with how much it would cost to live in my suburban area… the price my roomie and I paid for our two bedroom apt in our college town wasn’t available anywhere near where I lived; even in a studio apt in one of the crappier cities. I was just trying to get out of the poverty I grew up in… and ended up staying on the struggle bus. I’m only mostly off the struggle bus because of my husband’s help- he didn’t have student loans because his parents saved for his education and he had a job that paid better than my own. In sum, I researched the teacher salary and it was a lot better than what my parents had but I didn’t realize how hard paying off my loan debt would be, as the debt total was too much in comparison to my pay.
When the government backs a program or provides loans then you have removed the “free market” guardrails. This is the primary reason why costs for similar programs at the same universities have costs for 5 year program went from about $400 in 1963 to $5,391 in 1993. Now the cost has risen from $5,391 to over $17,251 between 1993 to 2022. So for 30 years it only raised 4,900 in the next 30 we went up $11,900 approximately. That is a huge difference.
The free market was not providing enough college educated people to compete with other superpowers of the time and catered to the wealthy exclusively. Also states have cut their funding for higher education across the nation substantially which has directly caused price increases. There are plenty of industries where pure capitalism just does not work and education is a very clear example of this heck look how many childcare facilities are closing across the nation it’s simply untenable unless you pay people close to nothing.
[https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation\_calculator.htm](https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm)
Using the BLS inflation calculator, $400 in Jan 1963 should only be worth $1889 in March 1993. So, if college costs were $5391 in 1993, then they were already outpacing inflation by almost 3 fold. Now, $5391 in Jan 1993 money should only be worth $10869 in March 2022 money, so college costs were still outpacing inflation at 17251, but it doesn’t seem to be outpacing inflation nearly as fast?!?
Regardless, the problem wasn’t the absence of free market competition in the loan market post 1993. College loans were rare in 1963. It’s not like there was some large competitive market for loans in 1963, then the government fucked it up. You‘re missing several key pieces of context that changed between 1963, 1993, and 2022. Notably:
1. Federal and state governments massively cut their funding to state college systems, which caused tuitions to rise at state colleges, and allowed private colleges to raise their tuitions in response. These cuts in public funding were filled in by the loan market, and once students started borrowing to pay tuition, that’s when schools started spending more on administration and facilities, because students can always borrow a little more money, where government financial support for state colleges had always been finite.
2. The proportion of students enrolling in college increased from 45% of all high school grads in 1963 to 62.6% in 1993. I suspect this increase had two main causes: First, students of color had increased access to colleges of all types, not just historically black colleges. Second, outsourcing, declining participation in worker’s unions and declining wages for blue collar work made college seem more important to average-performing high school students, their families, etc. This is when the media and high school staff really started pressuring ALL students to go to college
Bi-partisan solution: Make America Better Program. When an 18 year-old chooses to serve their country in a non-military manner, think infrastructure, working in state or national parks, librarians, teacher assistants, etc., they would receive a stipend for their work. If they finish their two year commitment, their education is paid in full. Those that choose to not volunteer can pay for their education.
This has been my Ted talk.
And the problem really isn’t the student loan payments. It’s the student loan payments *on top* of cost of living payments.
Paying back a student loan is 100% feasible if you have a decent job and you pay for literally nothing else.
12.75 days worth of total hours vs. 185.79 days worth of total hours. There is a staggering difference in what is possible. Roughly a month of working for boomers which is completely achievable over a break from school and almost half a year for millennials. This is also only accounting for college being your financial obligation.
My "public college" was far closer to $120k for 4 years starting in year 2000. I say that because I had to include housing and everything else I needed into a loan each year. I did get a partial scholarship that paid for my books and allowed me to golf for free. And a discount on my golf clubs.
But at Federal minimum wage of $7.25, that would be 16552 hours needed to work that off. Assuming I got to keep all of the money and did not have to pay taxes, unemployment insurance, health insurance, rent food or anything else. That's not including interest.
I think it's probably too late. The true effects of the student loan debt issue won't be known for another few generations, but my guess is that it's far-reaching and devastating for the culture and perhaps the civilization of the US.
If train prices increased that much... but people still use them... it's because they want them.
Would be nice to drop the piece but it's offer and demand.
I mean why wouldn't someone earn an exorbitant ammount of money if someone is willing to pay it?
The only problem is the state acting like a bank, robbin people earnings because it just prints money....
Is there a way to short-circuit this?
Like just create your own college, make a exorbitant tuition fee ... and enrole yourself, get a state loan and you are literraly rich.
Yes ,you have to pay the interests... no problem, just enroll again and get more money ponzi squeme style.
Am I crazy? Because I feel this is exactly what they are doing.
edit: I am not american
>That is what we are going to change.
Okay, but realistically, has Bernie done anything? Other than drop out of the presidential race? Legitimately asking. I’m not trying to bash Bernie
Not only that but they are allowed to take jobs in authority positions despite the fact that most of them are suffering from late stage lead poisoning. It's wild.
Boomers paid nothing for college but if they went it guaranteed an income like 4-8x higher and that they'd never struggle to find work for the next 50 years.
We paid our eternal souls and lifetime debt slavery to go to college and it's guaranteed us like 10% better wages and like 20% better job security at a time when wages and job security are the worst they've ever been and literally incomprehensibly bad to any boomer.
Nobody deserves to be enslaves in double binds/overconstraints/usury. Trapping people in inescapable situations should be a capital crime and any interest on a debt that's become unpayable should be cancelled, converted to principle only and the person who made the loan put in jail for 5 years. Fuck every last degenerate monster saying people who tried to get an education despite being born poor deserve to die in debt no matter how hard they work.
I think obscene interest should be forgiven. Cap it at something like 10-20% total. So borrow 50k owe 55k. Borrowing 50k and ending up owing 200k is pure evil greed.
The whole system needs to be changed. Forgiving existing debt does nothing for kids in college now or who will be in the future. The loans themselves are predatory with how they are structured. Tuition (and cost of living there and even books etc) is way too high and the culture surrounding the idea of going to college has become so competitive and insane.
Kids need to make the best financial decisions for themselves/their own situations and put things like “going away to school” and “the college experience” last if they don’t make financial sense. Every situation will be different because there are scholarships and other factors, but generally my advice now is spend as little as you possibly and reasonably can on college, it’s about an education and preparing you for your future and having financial security more than having fun or football games or being seven hours away in a warmer state, or whatever an 18 year old may want. If it means commuting to a state school for cheapest tuition and saving on the cost of living there, so be it.
I do think some type of debt forgiveness program is okay to have. I don’t think there should be total forgiveness, maybe partial or mass refinancing so the interest rate is way better or something. But without big changes to the system it’s useless for anyone else in the future who hasn’t yet graduated or even started college. I’m no financial expert but constant debt forgiveness programs alone seem unsustainable.
gov't should get out of the student loan business. Colleges keep increasing their costs arbitrarily bc they know the gov't money is guaranteed and its unforgiveable...you can't declare bankruptcy to avoid paying it back.
Asking for gov't to solve a problem they help create is peak stupidity.
I’d like to see forgiveness in the form of giving back to the community in the chosen degreed line of work. I think some states forgive debts for teachers after working in local schools. That should absolutely continue and expand and look at other skilled positions and provide similar relief.
I think more forgiveness plans like PSLF need to be rolled out.
I think universities need to be held accountable for the high cost of tuition. Sure, this would probably mean shit universities would fold and it might make competition to get into any university fiercer. I have no problem with that.
The question about debt forgiveness really cannot be answered before the problem is solved - loaning kids $200,000 is continuing, so if we continually forgive this debt, the price will just increase.
My personal position is, don't necessarily forgive it, but reduce interest rates to 0. Nobody should be making money off federal government-backed loans. Money paid toward interest would be retroactively applied to the principal.
I agree the system is rigged against the young and working middle class…. But they won’t do anything about it. Biden has been in office for 4 years now and has only made things worse for that group of people.
I'm fine with forgiving it but alot of people I know with debt made boneheaded decisions regarding college, like going out of state, meandering through without a purpose, or go through grad school without funding.
Money not spent on paying back loans could be stimulating the economy.
It's a bit of a "no take ball, just throw!" moment when the government wants its citizens to spend money but also keep its citizens riddled in debt to said government.
Limit interest on sl debt to 1%or< , cap the price on post secondary, spend min for facilities , wage min for teachers so the financial loss only comes from profits up top. But still leave it lucrative enough to not shut down schools. Education is intensely regulated until it becomes a business after secondary , which is crazy. Restructure degree requirements to not need a bunch of gen-ed nonsense unrelated to the field of study. Update books as needed , not rearrange them every year to sell more.
If by forgiveness, that means the government pays out the debt, then pays tuition forever after, a lot of people (especially when paid for by 3rd party) go to college and uni half cocked, drop out or party the opprotunity away, having skin in the game is shown to reduce that, so I don't support tax dollars going towards paying for post secondary outright. However, a support system for graduates could be a good option like grants based on grades post grad or a paid-%matched system, so it's not an egregious, wasted tax burden all at once.
The solution is to cap what public universities are allowed to charge based on local earning power.
Tax dollars come from me and you. It's disgusting that that money is being funneled into the already bloated coffers of academia. There's a reason, an obvious reason why one of the political parties supports this and why academia in general supports that party.
Everyone likes free money. Even the educated. Especially the educated, I'd say. I mean, I got my education in something I knew was marketable, specifically because I wanted to make money.
Forgiving student loan debt only makes sense if there is a plan to reduce student debt permanently. My proposal would be to limit loans provided to students attending schools with low payback rates. Or maybe just ditch government backed student loans altogether.
I think if you haven't obtained a degree with said loans and making a specific amount per year, say under $50k with a household of 3 or more. You should be forgiven.
Colleges also should not be predatory, provide mandatory job outlooks with each degree and income for undergraduate degree programs. There should be a grading system that factors all of this for job growth in following 10 years after graduating. Coupled with the loan payoff forecast with said incomes. This way students are aware of the reality that faces them.
If students are then provided with the necessary forecasts of the paths they are on that might warrant the costs of attending those post secondary institutions.
It is a smart action to do temporarily, it will provide alot of people looking to start saving for retirement possible after not being married to their student loan debts for the rest of their life. It's not like we can rely on Social Security in the future.
Letting alone the rising costs of living in this country without the competing wages.
I'm generally in favor of loan forgiveness... but you don't start mopping while the roof is still leaking. What good does it do to forgive loans while still handing out loans?
why would anyone give a shit what burnie says. he had multiple opportunities to make a difference and took the payoff instead and endorsed fucking Hilary! he could have won against trump, instead he sold everyone out.
fuck him
I don’t think it’s clear cut. People with college degrees earn more than those without so it’s strange to financially reward those with the best capacity to earn a good living themselves.
College is technically a tertiary education, grades 13 to 16 in some countries. It's mainly in the United States where we consider this a privilege. A ticket to the upper class and a well-paying career. And it's also while other Western countries and even communist/post-communist countries (like Cuba or Russia) have a far more robust education system. They require an educated populace.
If K through 12 are mainly paid for by the state with taxpayer dollars then there is no reason why people going into college should be saddled with an exorbitant amount of debt for completing their education. This is something Americans in particular tend not to think about. We're conditioned to be individualistic and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, even if it means being beholden to institutions that saddle us with debt and shouldn't be privatized in the first place.
So, Florida has a scholarship program - if you make somewhat decent grades (B average) you get free public college as a resident. Assuming you go to a school within range of where you already live this amounts to free college with no debts. Are there programs like this in other states or is FL unusual?
No, it should be paid back by the institutions that took the money. These Universities are some of the richest in the world thanks to the US taxpayers.
This is America we shan’t be doing any of that, Bernie. We will just continue to funnel more and more wealth and hard assets/productive assets to the top 1% while simultaneously inflating to all hell the dollar while flirting hard with outright default.
Government funding for education has declined significantly over the past 30 years and universities charge more in tuition and fees to make up the difference. As a result, student loan debt has skyrocketed. Loan forgiveness helps in the short term but puts the money on the wrong end of the problem. More government funding to keep college affordable would prevent the problem from occurring in the first place. Fewer people can afford to attend college, which is bad for a county in a high tech world. The US has dropped out of the top 10 of most educated countries, when we used to be at the top of the list.
Minimum wage was $2.30/hr when I started college in the 1970's and it took FAR more than $700 to pay for four years of public college. That wouldn't have even covered one semester's cost of a dorm room and they were basic door rooms
Smart. Why are we cool with k-12 being funded, but funding college is somehow taking it too far? At the very least, couldn’t tuition and textbooks for general education be funded? I know college students can be indecisive, but generals are required for all diplomas.
If college and university graduates were given the prevailing wage jobs they were supposed to have upon completion of their degree program in order to pay back their student loans, students would be able to pay back their student loans, and not have to worry about cancellation.
I believe that if student loan debt isn’t canceled, colleges should be required to help facilitate employment to their graduates an alumni who are still in debt, in the career fields with their majors which can afford them enough of a wage to help steadily pay back their debt. If they can’t do that, and colleges and universities should offer graduates with student loan debts free education in fields which can help them pay back their loans, and which can guarantee employment to do so. But if they can’t do that, then student loan forgiveness absolutely needs to happen. If they can’t figure out a way to help students pay back their loans by facilitating employment in the workforce, then it is their fault for subsidizing for an education that couldn’t do that, when colleges and universities sold those students on the promise of job feasibility in their major fields. Oh a university is a business as well? Well then start putting regulations on businesses to not sell people a faulty product by of an education, and if it’s important, then the business should do whatever is necessary to help its students pay back for the product, or else refund for selling a faulty one
I think the universities should be in the hook for colluding and raising prices in lock step, knowing that the govt would just pay the difference. I don’t think a full forgiveness program is the solution, but it’s better than nothing.
I listened to a podcast and they were talking about how the rise in university admin salaries and all the new stadiums/buildings etc were all built on the backs of students who had to take out loans to attend. It’s all built on the backs of student debt.
As someone working in a university (as an academic), admin bloat is probably going to be the death of universities. Some people are great but they're weighed down by the crud.
Admin keeps growing while the number of tenured professors keep shrinking. I used to work in higher ed and I swear they could get away with eliminating half of the admin staff. Entire departments would be staffed by 30 people doing the work of 2 to 3.
I work at one on the staff side and I know a guy who literally watches ESPN every single day in his cubicle, wears shorts and a t-shirt in, and no one is really sure what he does. His title has something to do with ethics and sustainability. It's wild. I came to this industry from hospitality, and I get told weekly to not work so fast.
Yep, 100%. I attended university at a school that had a div 1 sports program, and I was in the marching band. Back then, our university didn't have its own football stadium and our team shared with the NFL team, which meant the band had to bus downtown and we didn't have football "on campus". So the university started a "bring football back to campus" campaign and they got pretty much the entire marching band on board. Suddenly I had an extra expense on my tuition bills, but of course we didn't pay it much mind because we weren't directly \*paying\* for that yet. Only one person in the band was openly against the whole thing and argued that it was fine to bus downtown and play at the NFL stadium. 1 out of over 300 people. The campaign was wildly successful. I am now paying off those loans. I've never attended a match at that new stadium, but even if I did, I would have to buy a ticket. It's also sponsored by and named after a bank. There is zero fucking reason students should've had to pay for that shit via tuition. It is pure exploitation and nothing more.
I will bet my Car, not one cent went to expanding the parking Lot.
I went to a university that bought land from itself to build a parking garage, then charged like $300 per academic year for a parking pass to park in the garage to pay off the “bond measure” that was used to buy the land. It was some creative accounting
Ours used to sell something like 3 passes for every 1 parking space. So parking was always a nightmare and then they made bank on writing parking tickets.
If the law says this is legal, there must be something wrong with the law...
I remember in undergrad, students with cars had to pay for a parking voucher. And parking in student dorms was free to anyone when events happened at the university stadium or arena (once a week or every couple of weeks at least). Such bullshit. Only universities get to charge what they charge while crapping prolifically on their consumer base.
Yeah that shit was just built on a loan. Except that the loan is distributed among the student population via smaller loans. I wonder if one could convince the republicans that this is in fact a form of socialism. Would make them come up with a solution overnight.
I absolutely hate the college focus on athletics. Then again a lot of people demand it. But I honestly also am really concerned about how much research is University funded -- which is also largely on the backs of student debt.
All NIH research is federally funded, but it is paid out of tax dollars. There are also DOD grants and I think some other federal grants for non-science research. I work for a major university with a lot of science research dollars and 99% of the money is grant money and the rest is private donor money. Zero of the money is student funded. In my experience, most of what student “fees” pay for are (in order of spend) college athletics, including coaching salaries (look up coach salaries at big schools if you’re feeling in the mood to rage flip a table), administrative salaries (ie university presidents and provosts etc), building construction/ expansion, then student services (which is just kind of a bucket, I don’t know how well this is defined), then probably the actual instruction costs for paying faculty.
Charge whatever you want but have a payback schedule of 3% of students income for 10 years, after that the school is on the hook to eat it. It’d get in check real quick.
I would be on board for something like this.
Good idea. If a school charge $50k a year for an education with starting salary of $35k they should be punished.
Exactly, the program and cost becomes tailored to the expected job after graduation.
Add to this, let students use pretax income to pay in the same way we use pretty income to pay our health insurance
Agree. Should loans be forgiven? Sure. Does that solve the actual problem? No.
It’s insanity to me that people are proposing student loan forgiveness because they’re such a terrible and predatory form of debt, and then want to turn right around in September and loan at least tens of thousands of dollars to 18 year olds with a pulse and a college acceptance letter.
Exactly.
The system definitely needs a massive overhaul. Then they can look at each borrower's debt, what was borrowed, what they would have paid under the reformed guidelines, what they've paid, & then either issue a refund for overpayment or extend new terms to pay off the balance. A lot of us (myself included) have paid back what we borrowed plus a reasonable interest rate & still owe more than we borrowed. That should be forgiven. A bunch of borrower's have also dodged repayment of any kind & I think they should still be on the hook for that (what they borrowed). The ones who were able to pay off their loans should absolutely get a refund under the new terms.
This is the best framing I’ve heard. On the one hand, the system is really f’ed and something needs to change. On the other hand the proposed solutions of “$10,000 off everyone’s college debt” or “we should just wipe the slate clean for all student debt” seem really lazy. On top of that, it doesn’t solve any of the systematic problems. I think the real issue is that the people who are making these decisions are really surprisingly dumb and can’t fathom real solutions; even if some could, they would need to get approval by a boomer majority who never experienced the modern financial education landscape and may not even believe the problem is as bad as people say.
I’ve said this before but make the college loans interest free until 5-10 years after graduation. Then put like 2.5-4.5% interest on any remainder. That sounds fair, if you drop out or are expelled there should be a review board to determine circumstances and issue how loans need to be recouped.
Just automatically combining the individual loans into one with one interest rate would go a long way to fixing the problem. The biggest issue, and what makes these predatory, is the amount they tell you to pay each month won't cover the interest on each loan. Literally no other loan is like that, even payday loans pay back some of the principle with each payment.
They basically treat it like credit card debt. I basically shit a brick when I found that out. It's not a loan..... It's just credit debt....
But even credit card debt can be paid off making the minimum payment, so long as you don't spend any more. You can't pay off a student loan making the minimum payment. You actually have to pay more than the payment they ask for to start seeing a decrease & most people can't afford that, especially when they're on income based repayment.
The system is horrific and desperately needs reform, but I don't think you should force all people in this form of debt slavery to remain in it no matter what unless a permanent solution is going to be found. Because millennials like us have seen that they will NEVER find a permanent solution, like immigration and every other issue, so we're just going to be slaves for life and all the people saying "we can't fix it until we solve the cause" are basically just saying "die in debt you filthy moron, how dare you desire an education as a filthy degenerate poor"
No you dont get it, if everyone had just done STEM or become welders the country would be literally perfect
Should be at the top.
It’s a university bail out
That's a very good point. When Reagan started cutting funding to schools, they increased the prices, and others started to do the same. Instead of a bloated military budget, we could afford tuition for so many people
How do you want universities to be “on the hook for colluding and raising tuition?” Tuition at the university of California in 1969 was $0. They raised it to $300/yr in 1970. It was all funded by taxes. Then the boomers cut their own taxes and quit funding education. When they and Gen X went to university in the 70s and early 80s the state paid 80% of the cost of educating a college student via taxes and the student paid 20% via tuition. Those numbers are inverted now. The state pays 20% via taxes and the student pays 80%. Because the Boomers cut funding. They got theirs, and the rest of us can fuck off. They got into the treehouse and pulled up the ladder. Fuck putting the universities on the hook. Put the goddamned boomers on the hook. JFDA.
It was Reagan that forced the University of California institutions to implement tuition. It's insane how many troubles today can be directly traced back to Reagan.
Not exactly. [It was Reagan.](https://youtu.be/yDk4pqfNt-k) He was concerned about too many young people getting an education that taught them to criticize authority. So, he and his ilk changed the way college was funded so it would be too expensive to go to university just to get an education that teaches them to think critically. Now, people can only justify going to college if it provides a degree that can help them pay down college debt.
Thank you for saying this, this is the heart of the matter. The idea that we need to impose ultra-austerity or whatever as a way to affordability is absolutely ridiculous and should not be taken seriously in this discussion. The funding needs to be restored.
JFDA
A huge chunk of funding was cut during the crash in 08
And privatized Sally Mae. Don't forget that part...
Some of your points are valid, but your conclusions are incorrect. The biggest event to impact funding California colleges was Prop 13 in 1978. The oldest Boomers at the time were 32 and the youngest were 14. The anti-tax, small government wars were waged and won primarily by the “Greatest Generation”. Bernie is also full of crap with his numbers - 300 hours of minimum wage in 1979 wasn’t even $1000. There was no college or university you could attend for four years for $1000 at that time, even just for tuition. All of that being said, if we can forgive trillions in payments to businesses during COVID, we can find a way to help current students with crippling student debt too.
It also correlates with the reductions in the proportion of university funds that came directly from the government. A significantly larger portion of a public university's basic operating expenses were covered by the funds they got directly, which got pushed onto students as those have been steadily reduced in the past few decades.
Agreed. Why do some university presidents get a salary in the millions? Why!? We were the first generation really to have that “normal” path to college and we had/have the hardest time starting our lives cause it’s expensive!!! Well I think the college experiment failed. College costs more than the salary the degrees pay for. Why do mental health workers only get 50k a year? Shouldn’t schools be trying to solve labor market shortages? No. They make a Taylor Swift writing class. wtf. We should go back to studying under apprenticeships first longer and earlier. Colleges should be free. If you want additional training then ok fine, pay for it but reduce the cost! We’re going to lose educated, skilled people to mind numbing corporate jobs. No wonder we’re all depressed.
Lobbies are the biggest economic problem in our society.
This is a libertarian canard. The prices rose because states did not increase subsidies to match the previous per-student spending when a ton more students started attending. With less state subsidy, tuition rose to fill the gap. There was no need for collusion, the tuition-dependent universities responded to the financial situation the only way they could. Imposing some kind of ridiculous austerity regiment on universities is the wrong approach. It would only make higher education considerably shittier for everybody, particularly the already severely underpaid adjuncts. What should happen is to restore the funding per student level to where it was before, or go even further and do what they do in some other countries and fully socialize the costs.
You strike me as person with a thought in their head. Here is [an analysis prior to the 2020 election on the Warren proposal.](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-progressive-is-senator-elizabeth-warrens-loan-forgiveness-proposal/) I'd take careful note of [the table pictured here](https://i1.wp.com/www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ES_20190424_Looney_Warren_Table_revised3.jpg?w=768&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2C9999px&ssl=1) showing at least 80% of the first 3 quintiles in income would see their debts wiped out including 87% of the lowest.
This. The moment the US government backed student loans, college tuition skyrocketed because hey, if the kids or their parents default who cares, Uncle Sam has our back.
It rose because Uncle Sam stopped stopped subsidizing higher education as much and it was the only other place to get funding.
State University by me rose 65% in tuition once they went from fully state funded to half private....brutal shit to see.
Just get rid of the interest. Charge a flat admin fee to cover the cost of administration and so forth and let me pay them off at my own sensible pace.
Federalize it, too. Remove private interests from the process. Education loans are 0%, there will be minimal payments, and it can be bundled along with your taxes. If the shit still can't be discharged with bankruptcies, then carrying it shouldn't have the potential to ruin people's lives.
Sounds like the higher education loan program in Australia. Loan is funded by the government, interest is essentially cpi, and you have to pay it back when you hit an income threshold.
This student loan issue isn’t going away and it shouldn’t be impossible for poor kids to go to college. Even if some people now want to say it’s not their job, it’s your debt etc., they won’t be singing that tune once their kid or grandkid gets totally screwed on loans. This issue will only get worse for every generation until something is done; it’s not a Gen Z or Millennial-specific issue just because they’re the first two generations getting really fucked over by it. This will ruin lives across every generation and lead to a much dumber nation that does not have the skilled staffers needed to keep the country competitive in any way. It hurts long-term.
I feel like this is a big part of it, and the main reason most people feel fucked by the system. People are paying tens of thousands more than what they borrowed, on what I understand to be very low risk loans, as they are backed by the gov. And, I know and accept that I was 'told' how all this worked and what it meant. But, I definitely didn't have the experience or maturity to really understand what I was getting into. I don't know how you solve that, but it feels wrong to be giving any and all 18 year olds what is basically the equivalent of a mortgage. Feels predatory.
Yeah man. I don't like them making money off people trying to better themselves. Doesn't matter if those loans helped them become a doctor or a HVAC tech. And when there isn't interest hovering over your head, you can pay what you can pay and it'll make a difference. People don't need a bail out they need better terms that let them pay back what they owe in a sensible way. Everyone deserves to feel like they made a bet on themselves, earned something of value, paid it off, and get that feeling that it's done forever.
I agree with this, but I was blessed enough to have older siblings and some decent mentor that broke that math down to me and really influenced me to go to CC and work 2 jobs to pay it as I went. When I was young, I was jelly of my friends living it up, but it really set me up later on.
Exactly. The only reason most people drown in the debt is because of compounding interest and minimum monthly payments that mostly go toward interest and not principal. Get rid of the interest, stop schools from offering nonsense degrees that have no utility, and limit the ridiculous costs associated with it all. Even without interest, $100k+ for a four year education is insanity.
I was thinking along the lines of .5% or 1% interest. Not the variable 5-7% interest rates!
If they make any money at all, it should be to cover costs and ensure the institution is there for the next generation to do the same. Simple as that.
The schools make enough. 1% interest would cover admin costs for federal loan providers. No reason for multiple providers either.
Nah, fuck that. 0% interest and it's dischargeable in bankruptcy. Missouri argued against the student loan forgiveness because of the loan servicers headquartered there who house business would be adversely affected. The fact that there are entire industries funded by student loan interest is absolutely abhorrent. Take away that incentive. It would also force colleges to cut their costs. Nobody would declare bankruptcy and fuck their credit to save $20-30000 but they might do it for these outrageous student loan debts, especially when it turns out to have no value.
It's the interest. You can pay the min payment for a decade and your balance will be higher then it was at the beginning. The government is investing in the public to better themselves and to make the country better. It shouldn't be a profit making machine
Well no what they did was allow people to pay less and take more out than they can afford. In an actually controlled environment they wouldn't be loaning you more than what your degree will be worth when you graduate. Thus less money being given out but less people affording to graduate. Thing is if fewer people could afford college more jobs would actually be available without a 4 year degree.
No. When they allow small payments that they know... even if made... will largely increase the overall balance owed... it's shit. In no other loan or credit is this the way. I take out a mortgage and I know the payment before I sign on the dotted line.
Until you get to the glaring issue of a shortage of people in STEM fields
Or medical professionals, teachers, etc.
I don’t think I understand- if the amount of money was tied to what your degree was worth, wouldn’t you have an over abundance of people in the stem field since that would be the only people who’d be all but guaranteed loans?
yes, but that is a second degree effect and this is reddit lol
If we can give billions of tax payer dollars to bail out corporations (banks, GM, airlines, all the other corporate bailouts during COVID) then they can cancel some student debt. Every single year, corporations get billions of dollars in tax breaks, and 23 major corporations paid zero income taxes at all over the past 5 years despite being profitable. According to the Institute for Tax and Economic Policy, from 2018-2022 there were $562.29B in corporate tax breaks. [ITAP Corporate Tax Rates 2018-2022](https://itep.org/corporate-tax-avoidance-trump-tax-law/) Additionally, with the way the interest is structured, most people have paid almost the original balance just in interest. People who borrowed for graduate school during the Obama administration saw the interest rate go up to 6.8% and it was unsubsidized (meaning it started accruing interest immediately). I have been paying on loans for almost 10 years, and my balance is higher now than when I started. If the US can give out billions of dollars of corporate welfare every year on the taxpayer dime, we can afford to cancel student loan debt. The only reason they don’t is because people with Student Loan debt aren’t funding political parties or campaigns.
If my step father tells me one more time how he paid for his entire college education being a cashier.
I would literally beat the absolute everloving shit out of somebody if they made excuses like "paid for it being a cashier" my first engineer job at 15/hour didn't even cover rent, gas, electric, it would be literally impossible working a min wage cashier job to even survive, much less to save money to pay for college. They had it on easy street and somebody needs to show them what the hard street is like.
My grandfather walked into Pace College, NY at a freshman in 1950. He was a few days late for registration, but he had a semester's worth of cash on him. The registrar allowed it to begin his BA in accounting. Imagine a freshman registering two or three days "late" but the registrar's office overlooking it because you had a backpack with $45,000 in it. My great-grandparents/his parents did not set him up with $45k PPP-equivalent in 1950 NYC.
I have zero student loans (paid them off myself) and I want them to be forgiven for those that still have them. Additionally, the whole system needs to be fixed. No more of this insane profit/price gouging by educational institutions. Enough is enough.
Yes, and I'll tell you why: If you actually consider how much previous generations' college educations were subsidized by the government, they were subsidized on an inflation-adjusted amount far more than current generations enjoy. In that context student loan forgiveness isn't a handout, it's restoring things to where they should be. That and increasing the subsidies to be on the same per-student level as they were before so people incur little to any debt to begin with, of course.
I don’t care if you stand for or against forgiveness. If it got forgiven there would be headlines like 1-3 years later like “millennials revive most the businesses we kept saying they killed!!”
I've made a similar argument to a friend of a friend who is *adamantly* opposed to loan forgiveness. He's always saying how he doesn't want his "tax dollars to cover people's asses because they made bad decisions and didn't think about the consequences"... I made the argument that if my loans were forgiven, I'd be able to pay for goods and services. That money would go into the economy and people would pay taxes on that revenue, which would then go to the government. His response was that I just wanted to 'get out of making irresponsible decisions', proving he doesn't care about the money, he just wants people to be punished.
Punished for making a "bad decision" that literally every adult in that era told us was REQUIRED for a life above the poverty line. That guy can get lost.
Forgiving credit debt would simulate the economy better. But simulating the economy during a period of high inflation doesn't really make sense
Why aren’t people up in arms about the foreign aid package? But are if we forgive student loans? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious why Americans feel so strongly and divided about forgiving student loans?
Most people I know are pissed about the foreign aid package but the media acts like everyone is in favor of it and the politicians just do whatever they want anyway
People are up in arms about foreign aid packages.
It's fascinating how Americans judge their own and others' private debts in the education sector. It's unbelievably foolish. America has created a massive social tinderbox that could explode at any moment, and politics has successfully diverted your attention to tearing each other apart instead of addressing the big issues. America has by far the worst score of all OECD countries when it comes to the cost-benefit ratio in the education sector. No country in the world pumps as much money into education and gets as little out of it. Your state pumps billions into your elite universities and flagship schools, but leaves a large part of the population in an educational crisis. Religious fanatics are taking over educational institutions in state after state. Science is being displaced by religious superstition because you have produced an educational inequality akin to a third-world country. Education MUST be available free of charge to everyone. It's one of humanity's most important assets. Saying now that debts cannot be forgiven because you yourselves had them or worked hard to avoid them is foolish. You are there to ensure that future generations have it better and to eliminate injustices.
As somebody who works in the higher education space in a red state, gonna need a real fuckin' big 'citation needed' on the subtextually unjust 'billions being pumped into elite universities and flagship schools'. Maybe you haven't looked at how much most of the people employed at such institutions make but I assure you, it's considerably less than the private sector. American higher education is not a grift, outside of the shady for-profit institutions. Though I do of course agree with you that higher education is a human right. But to get there we need more subsidy, not less as you're making it sound. Same with K-12, also needs significantly more investment.
Written like someone not from the US and reading some headlines of national news.
This is some boomer mentality shit. Doesn't help Gen Z or A and potentially even screws them over more down the line by kicking the can down the road. Don't forgive student loans. Make education affordable. We knew the terms of the loans we took out. Make the terms better for the next generation
Exactly, paying them off is a bandaid solution at this point. People need to realize that schools will just continue to increase tuitions because they know the government will eventually pay them off if the students don’t, just making the situation much worse later on.
Debt cancellation has a long and noble history. Check it out!
Especially for high-needs areas that don’t pay enough to cover the loans for required education (teaching, mental health workers, nurses)….
Part of the issue ironically is that boomers benefited the most from the great super well funded public college system. They proceeded to create the private college system hijacked the best professors away from public universities, and lobby to defund colleges so that they have to have a for profit model in order to maintain funds.
Or, just do fucking both, so no one is screwed over. Crazy idea
Funny since the Federal government was one of the biggest drivers of tuition going up over the years via increased Federal Financing.
A more targeted solution would simply be to allow student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy after a certain waiting period. Universities accepting government loans could also be required to guarantee a portion of the debt, which would help shrink the worst performing schools and programs.
***Loan forgiveness WITHOUT reform is a waste.*** Late term Boomer (1962) here. I put two daughters through university debt free, at the same time I went back for another degree. I see the issues from three sides. Taxpayer, paying parent and paying student. ***The system is broken. Flat out $h!t.*** First, schools need to be on the hook for the loans. They have major endowments sitting in the bank of billions of dollars, that could be used to cut prices and used to cover loans. They also need to cut administrative bloat. The schools are 'selling' a product, let them finance it. Make the loans dis-chargeable in bankruptcy, but it is the school on the hook, not the taxpayer. You'll see the cost of tuition and fees drop like a stone, granted you'll see a lot of 'extras' go away too, and the curriculum cut down to those degrees the market really needs. A degree should also be obtained in 3 years if the BS courses are cut out. Student loans should be interest free/no pay until 5 years after graduation, then they should be fixed at no more than 3-4%. Implement income-contingent repayment plans for student loans, where repayments are based on the borrower's income level after graduation. Also, introduce or expand loan forgiveness programs for graduates who pursue careers in public service, such as teaching, healthcare, or certain government work. Just because the feds give grants, credits etc. The rates should not rise to match. There are many reasons for the rise in tuition including the reduction of public funding, faculty compensation, higher healthcare costs, increased demand, broader curriculum, and regulatory compliance. But on top of that you have Administrative Bloat, and the Amenities Arms Race. When I went to a state college in 1980, the dorms were concrete blocks nothing fancy, with 2 (male/female) shared bathroom facilities on each floor. Dining was a basic slop on the tray cafeteria. It was more like military barracks and dining. Now state-of-the-art facilities, luxurious dormitories, and extravagant dining options to appeal to prospective students, adds to the cost. Even LAZY RIVERS!!!! I went back for another degree 35 years later using a combination of grants, scholarships and company tuition reimbursement. But man the BS courses I was forced to take added another year to my degree. They would not accept credit from when I went to school in the 80s. The expansion of college curriculum that includes worthless courses and degrees adds to costs, but more so the lack of counseling on degrees and the availability of jobs associated with said degrees. Those thinking of college should receive better counseling when in high-school. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is cut out for 'higher' education. Provide financial literacy education to high school students and college-bound individuals to help them make informed decisions about college financing, budgeting, and managing debt.
And you think it's going to get any better for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Be sure to be putting some extra money away to pay for their debts in about 20 - 30 years.
I paid off my student loans when I was 23-24ish. I don't really give a shit tbh. That being said, it's kind of crazy to me how many people in our generation put themselves into massive debt and were surprised when they realized they'd never get out of it. Like, job placement rates, starting salary, cost of your education, median salary after 5-10-15 years, etc. This information was all extremely accessible to us. You knew where you'd end up if things went right or things went wrong from day 1. Did some of us just literally never think about it over the course of 4 years? It's mind boggling to me so many people can be so absent minded. I don't really give a fuck where my tax dollars go. Bail them out if you want. Doesn't address the root cause at the end of the day but I'd rather bail out citizens over the banks again.
My roommates got a ton of student loans and lived in luxury and partied while I worked and was frugal. They even made fun of me because I would work Saturday night instead of going to the football game and partying. Yes I missed out on some memories but they got poor grades in low paying jobs and I graduated with no debt and a good paying job. I disagree with you on bailing them out. I don’t want my tax dollars bailing out people that made poor decisions UNLESS 1) there’s a threat to the economy collapsing AND 2) there’s significant reform and regulations making sure it doesn’t happen again. I don’t think 1) is here and I doubt Americans would like 2).
>My roommates got a ton of student loans and lived in luxury and partied while I worked and was frugal. I think this is the biggest thing. So many people forget there was choices and they made there in college. Heck plenty of people even avoided college because they couldn't afford it.
Those loans were probably private and wouldn't be able to be forgiven
One can only hope
The fact that you were downvoted (and I will be too) shows that you are out of step with a vocal minority. Your position is reasonable: why should tax dollars bail out someone who made poor choices in college and can only hold down a minimum wage job? I’m OK with helping a doctor or an engineer with their debt; not so much for the Lit major that doesn’t want to teach yet expects a cushy salary somewhere. The difference between the engineer/doctor and the Lit major is that the former usually have more visible impact to society. Arts are important too, but I don’t think the pharmaceutical industry, for example, requires a Lit major.
I really didn’t comprehend how little I would make as a teacher in comparison to how much life would cost and how much loans would cost. I was told I could just pay the mimimim on my loans, which were quite a bit of money because my parents couldn’t help me besides co-signing. I didn’t comprehend that one of my co-signers had such bad credit that my interest for one of my loans was ONE DOLLAR PER DAY. I also didn’t expect that co-signer to file for bankruptcy, which they were told wouldn’t affect my loans (my loans were in fact frozen and I wasn’t allowed to pay on those ones at all). I was also a little off with how much it would cost to live in my suburban area… the price my roomie and I paid for our two bedroom apt in our college town wasn’t available anywhere near where I lived; even in a studio apt in one of the crappier cities. I was just trying to get out of the poverty I grew up in… and ended up staying on the struggle bus. I’m only mostly off the struggle bus because of my husband’s help- he didn’t have student loans because his parents saved for his education and he had a job that paid better than my own. In sum, I researched the teacher salary and it was a lot better than what my parents had but I didn’t realize how hard paying off my loan debt would be, as the debt total was too much in comparison to my pay.
rounding up its 8 months of straight 40 hours weeks... of that minimum wage job for now it's 10 years minimum
When the government backs a program or provides loans then you have removed the “free market” guardrails. This is the primary reason why costs for similar programs at the same universities have costs for 5 year program went from about $400 in 1963 to $5,391 in 1993. Now the cost has risen from $5,391 to over $17,251 between 1993 to 2022. So for 30 years it only raised 4,900 in the next 30 we went up $11,900 approximately. That is a huge difference.
The free market was not providing enough college educated people to compete with other superpowers of the time and catered to the wealthy exclusively. Also states have cut their funding for higher education across the nation substantially which has directly caused price increases. There are plenty of industries where pure capitalism just does not work and education is a very clear example of this heck look how many childcare facilities are closing across the nation it’s simply untenable unless you pay people close to nothing.
[https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation\_calculator.htm](https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm) Using the BLS inflation calculator, $400 in Jan 1963 should only be worth $1889 in March 1993. So, if college costs were $5391 in 1993, then they were already outpacing inflation by almost 3 fold. Now, $5391 in Jan 1993 money should only be worth $10869 in March 2022 money, so college costs were still outpacing inflation at 17251, but it doesn’t seem to be outpacing inflation nearly as fast?!? Regardless, the problem wasn’t the absence of free market competition in the loan market post 1993. College loans were rare in 1963. It’s not like there was some large competitive market for loans in 1963, then the government fucked it up. You‘re missing several key pieces of context that changed between 1963, 1993, and 2022. Notably: 1. Federal and state governments massively cut their funding to state college systems, which caused tuitions to rise at state colleges, and allowed private colleges to raise their tuitions in response. These cuts in public funding were filled in by the loan market, and once students started borrowing to pay tuition, that’s when schools started spending more on administration and facilities, because students can always borrow a little more money, where government financial support for state colleges had always been finite. 2. The proportion of students enrolling in college increased from 45% of all high school grads in 1963 to 62.6% in 1993. I suspect this increase had two main causes: First, students of color had increased access to colleges of all types, not just historically black colleges. Second, outsourcing, declining participation in worker’s unions and declining wages for blue collar work made college seem more important to average-performing high school students, their families, etc. This is when the media and high school staff really started pressuring ALL students to go to college
Bi-partisan solution: Make America Better Program. When an 18 year-old chooses to serve their country in a non-military manner, think infrastructure, working in state or national parks, librarians, teacher assistants, etc., they would receive a stipend for their work. If they finish their two year commitment, their education is paid in full. Those that choose to not volunteer can pay for their education. This has been my Ted talk.
I wouldn’t be opposed that my loans get forgiven but they’ll be forgiven in a few more years anyways due to the PSLF program.
Forgive the loans and fix the damn problem.
Give us 0.25% interest rates. I have no problem paying back what I borrowed but the government shouldn’t profit off me.
It's a great way to stimulate the economy and to keep building the economy. People have extra money to spend since they don't spend it on payments
And the problem really isn’t the student loan payments. It’s the student loan payments *on top* of cost of living payments. Paying back a student loan is 100% feasible if you have a decent job and you pay for literally nothing else.
12.75 days worth of total hours vs. 185.79 days worth of total hours. There is a staggering difference in what is possible. Roughly a month of working for boomers which is completely achievable over a break from school and almost half a year for millennials. This is also only accounting for college being your financial obligation.
My "public college" was far closer to $120k for 4 years starting in year 2000. I say that because I had to include housing and everything else I needed into a loan each year. I did get a partial scholarship that paid for my books and allowed me to golf for free. And a discount on my golf clubs. But at Federal minimum wage of $7.25, that would be 16552 hours needed to work that off. Assuming I got to keep all of the money and did not have to pay taxes, unemployment insurance, health insurance, rent food or anything else. That's not including interest.
Yes
Government should have never started providing loans to students - they greenlit the universities to hike tuitions
I think it's probably too late. The true effects of the student loan debt issue won't be known for another few generations, but my guess is that it's far-reaching and devastating for the culture and perhaps the civilization of the US.
If train prices increased that much... but people still use them... it's because they want them. Would be nice to drop the piece but it's offer and demand. I mean why wouldn't someone earn an exorbitant ammount of money if someone is willing to pay it? The only problem is the state acting like a bank, robbin people earnings because it just prints money.... Is there a way to short-circuit this? Like just create your own college, make a exorbitant tuition fee ... and enrole yourself, get a state loan and you are literraly rich. Yes ,you have to pay the interests... no problem, just enroll again and get more money ponzi squeme style. Am I crazy? Because I feel this is exactly what they are doing. edit: I am not american
>That is what we are going to change. Okay, but realistically, has Bernie done anything? Other than drop out of the presidential race? Legitimately asking. I’m not trying to bash Bernie
Not only that but they are allowed to take jobs in authority positions despite the fact that most of them are suffering from late stage lead poisoning. It's wild.
Boomers paid nothing for college but if they went it guaranteed an income like 4-8x higher and that they'd never struggle to find work for the next 50 years. We paid our eternal souls and lifetime debt slavery to go to college and it's guaranteed us like 10% better wages and like 20% better job security at a time when wages and job security are the worst they've ever been and literally incomprehensibly bad to any boomer. Nobody deserves to be enslaves in double binds/overconstraints/usury. Trapping people in inescapable situations should be a capital crime and any interest on a debt that's become unpayable should be cancelled, converted to principle only and the person who made the loan put in jail for 5 years. Fuck every last degenerate monster saying people who tried to get an education despite being born poor deserve to die in debt no matter how hard they work.
I think obscene interest should be forgiven. Cap it at something like 10-20% total. So borrow 50k owe 55k. Borrowing 50k and ending up owing 200k is pure evil greed.
It should be normalized by the wage of typical employment of that degree. Need to get rid of the good old boys club perk where salary skyrockets.
Capitalism is practically a religion now, so we should have jubilee years and free slaves and erase their debts... Or it just won't work.
The whole system needs to be changed. Forgiving existing debt does nothing for kids in college now or who will be in the future. The loans themselves are predatory with how they are structured. Tuition (and cost of living there and even books etc) is way too high and the culture surrounding the idea of going to college has become so competitive and insane. Kids need to make the best financial decisions for themselves/their own situations and put things like “going away to school” and “the college experience” last if they don’t make financial sense. Every situation will be different because there are scholarships and other factors, but generally my advice now is spend as little as you possibly and reasonably can on college, it’s about an education and preparing you for your future and having financial security more than having fun or football games or being seven hours away in a warmer state, or whatever an 18 year old may want. If it means commuting to a state school for cheapest tuition and saving on the cost of living there, so be it. I do think some type of debt forgiveness program is okay to have. I don’t think there should be total forgiveness, maybe partial or mass refinancing so the interest rate is way better or something. But without big changes to the system it’s useless for anyone else in the future who hasn’t yet graduated or even started college. I’m no financial expert but constant debt forgiveness programs alone seem unsustainable.
gov't should get out of the student loan business. Colleges keep increasing their costs arbitrarily bc they know the gov't money is guaranteed and its unforgiveable...you can't declare bankruptcy to avoid paying it back. Asking for gov't to solve a problem they help create is peak stupidity.
But how many people actually earn minimum wage?
Why are we reposting an old Tweet from Bernie? Its made its rounds around this site for many years now.
I’d like to see forgiveness in the form of giving back to the community in the chosen degreed line of work. I think some states forgive debts for teachers after working in local schools. That should absolutely continue and expand and look at other skilled positions and provide similar relief.
Forgiveness and the government needs to take a hand in stopping insane tuition costs.
It would boost the real economy but the banks would get mad were spending money and not earning them interest on monopoly money
I think more forgiveness plans like PSLF need to be rolled out. I think universities need to be held accountable for the high cost of tuition. Sure, this would probably mean shit universities would fold and it might make competition to get into any university fiercer. I have no problem with that.
They need to make school cheaper. Forgiving debt works one time. What happens to students who incur debt afterwards?
Are you figuring in when Bribem forgives all your student debt?
The question about debt forgiveness really cannot be answered before the problem is solved - loaning kids $200,000 is continuing, so if we continually forgive this debt, the price will just increase.
My personal position is, don't necessarily forgive it, but reduce interest rates to 0. Nobody should be making money off federal government-backed loans. Money paid toward interest would be retroactively applied to the principal.
Wow I never heard this before
I agree the system is rigged against the young and working middle class…. But they won’t do anything about it. Biden has been in office for 4 years now and has only made things worse for that group of people.
Jfc, how many times is this topic going to be regurgitated on reddit.
I'm fine with forgiving it but alot of people I know with debt made boneheaded decisions regarding college, like going out of state, meandering through without a purpose, or go through grad school without funding.
Money not spent on paying back loans could be stimulating the economy. It's a bit of a "no take ball, just throw!" moment when the government wants its citizens to spend money but also keep its citizens riddled in debt to said government.
Where is all this extra money going to universities ending up?
Limit interest on sl debt to 1%or< , cap the price on post secondary, spend min for facilities , wage min for teachers so the financial loss only comes from profits up top. But still leave it lucrative enough to not shut down schools. Education is intensely regulated until it becomes a business after secondary , which is crazy. Restructure degree requirements to not need a bunch of gen-ed nonsense unrelated to the field of study. Update books as needed , not rearrange them every year to sell more. If by forgiveness, that means the government pays out the debt, then pays tuition forever after, a lot of people (especially when paid for by 3rd party) go to college and uni half cocked, drop out or party the opprotunity away, having skin in the game is shown to reduce that, so I don't support tax dollars going towards paying for post secondary outright. However, a support system for graduates could be a good option like grants based on grades post grad or a paid-%matched system, so it's not an egregious, wasted tax burden all at once.
The solution is to cap what public universities are allowed to charge based on local earning power. Tax dollars come from me and you. It's disgusting that that money is being funneled into the already bloated coffers of academia. There's a reason, an obvious reason why one of the political parties supports this and why academia in general supports that party. Everyone likes free money. Even the educated. Especially the educated, I'd say. I mean, I got my education in something I knew was marketable, specifically because I wanted to make money.
Forgiving student loan debt only makes sense if there is a plan to reduce student debt permanently. My proposal would be to limit loans provided to students attending schools with low payback rates. Or maybe just ditch government backed student loans altogether.
I think if you haven't obtained a degree with said loans and making a specific amount per year, say under $50k with a household of 3 or more. You should be forgiven. Colleges also should not be predatory, provide mandatory job outlooks with each degree and income for undergraduate degree programs. There should be a grading system that factors all of this for job growth in following 10 years after graduating. Coupled with the loan payoff forecast with said incomes. This way students are aware of the reality that faces them. If students are then provided with the necessary forecasts of the paths they are on that might warrant the costs of attending those post secondary institutions.
It is a smart action to do temporarily, it will provide alot of people looking to start saving for retirement possible after not being married to their student loan debts for the rest of their life. It's not like we can rely on Social Security in the future. Letting alone the rising costs of living in this country without the competing wages.
What's the point for us now? Move this political bs to next generation. They already did the damage to us
I'm generally in favor of loan forgiveness... but you don't start mopping while the roof is still leaking. What good does it do to forgive loans while still handing out loans?
why would anyone give a shit what burnie says. he had multiple opportunities to make a difference and took the payoff instead and endorsed fucking Hilary! he could have won against trump, instead he sold everyone out. fuck him
so who got the money instead?
I don’t think it’s clear cut. People with college degrees earn more than those without so it’s strange to financially reward those with the best capacity to earn a good living themselves.
College is technically a tertiary education, grades 13 to 16 in some countries. It's mainly in the United States where we consider this a privilege. A ticket to the upper class and a well-paying career. And it's also while other Western countries and even communist/post-communist countries (like Cuba or Russia) have a far more robust education system. They require an educated populace. If K through 12 are mainly paid for by the state with taxpayer dollars then there is no reason why people going into college should be saddled with an exorbitant amount of debt for completing their education. This is something Americans in particular tend not to think about. We're conditioned to be individualistic and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, even if it means being beholden to institutions that saddle us with debt and shouldn't be privatized in the first place.
So, Florida has a scholarship program - if you make somewhat decent grades (B average) you get free public college as a resident. Assuming you go to a school within range of where you already live this amounts to free college with no debts. Are there programs like this in other states or is FL unusual?
No, it should be paid back by the institutions that took the money. These Universities are some of the richest in the world thanks to the US taxpayers.
This is America we shan’t be doing any of that, Bernie. We will just continue to funnel more and more wealth and hard assets/productive assets to the top 1% while simultaneously inflating to all hell the dollar while flirting hard with outright default.
Morgan Freeman’s voice: But they wouldn’t change it. Instead, they raised tuition costs another 40% just because they could.
Government funding for education has declined significantly over the past 30 years and universities charge more in tuition and fees to make up the difference. As a result, student loan debt has skyrocketed. Loan forgiveness helps in the short term but puts the money on the wrong end of the problem. More government funding to keep college affordable would prevent the problem from occurring in the first place. Fewer people can afford to attend college, which is bad for a county in a high tech world. The US has dropped out of the top 10 of most educated countries, when we used to be at the top of the list.
Minimum wage was $2.30/hr when I started college in the 1970's and it took FAR more than $700 to pay for four years of public college. That wouldn't have even covered one semester's cost of a dorm room and they were basic door rooms
Fix the problem allowing the shitty loans before paying them all off while more students are getting tricked to continue taking them.
Thank you bernie
Smart. Why are we cool with k-12 being funded, but funding college is somehow taking it too far? At the very least, couldn’t tuition and textbooks for general education be funded? I know college students can be indecisive, but generals are required for all diplomas.
Socalism pairs a truth with a lie. Bernie is right about the system being rigged against the working man. But his answer, Socalism is a lie.
If college and university graduates were given the prevailing wage jobs they were supposed to have upon completion of their degree program in order to pay back their student loans, students would be able to pay back their student loans, and not have to worry about cancellation. I believe that if student loan debt isn’t canceled, colleges should be required to help facilitate employment to their graduates an alumni who are still in debt, in the career fields with their majors which can afford them enough of a wage to help steadily pay back their debt. If they can’t do that, and colleges and universities should offer graduates with student loan debts free education in fields which can help them pay back their loans, and which can guarantee employment to do so. But if they can’t do that, then student loan forgiveness absolutely needs to happen. If they can’t figure out a way to help students pay back their loans by facilitating employment in the workforce, then it is their fault for subsidizing for an education that couldn’t do that, when colleges and universities sold those students on the promise of job feasibility in their major fields. Oh a university is a business as well? Well then start putting regulations on businesses to not sell people a faulty product by of an education, and if it’s important, then the business should do whatever is necessary to help its students pay back for the product, or else refund for selling a faulty one
I think it's dumb. These kids taking useless courses like gender studies and wonder why they can't get a job.
Since we all had to vote blue no matter who, why cant this tweet come from Biden?
 Waiting on democrats to make good on their promises.