Should the government pay off student's debt?

[Luvnit2]

It appears Joe Biden is doing another work around to cancel 98 billion in student debt. The SC struck down the 400 billion dollar plan to cancel student debt. It is an interesting debate. Those who worked their way through college will not get any pay back. Those who did not go to college on average make a lot less money
"College graduates are half as likely to be unemployed as their peers who only have a high school degree. Typical earnings for bachelor's degree holders are $36,000 or 84 percent higher than those whose highest degree is a high school diploma. College graduates on average make $1.2 million more over their lifetime."

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230609005393/en/Survey-Democrat-Republican-Independent-Voters-Agree-Capping-Federal-Student-Loans-for-Parents-and-Grad-Students-a-Necessary-Step-Toward-Addressing-Student-Debt-Crisis

It appears all parties agree that college loans are too easy to obtain and should be capped.

I believe more oversight is needed to work on colleges to lower their costs. My personal opinion is a college be capped on tuition and book costs. To even the playing field, the colleges should fund students who meet the criteria (grades and civic responsibility) through that college's scholarship program. We can all agree college costs are outrageous as they have no oversight to make college affordable. Of course that does nothing for students in debt today.

As far as current student debt, the current unemployment rate is extremely low so college students should have no issue finding a great job if they applied themselves and received a high GPA for their efforts. I think the grade qualifier should be applied in any plan for us (government) to pay back student loans. We know the non college graduate will make less than a million dollars a year than a college graduate. Education is an investment, those who maximized the investment by going to class and achieving high results should be rewarded. Those who went to college stayed on campus and did poorly should not be rewarded with our hard earned tax dollars. I have an issue paying for college party animals. I have a hunch those who did not stay on campus, worked one or 2 jobs to pay off their college tuition likely have an issue also.

[KillerGoose]

(07-14-2023, 04:35 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: It appears Joe Biden is ding another work around to cancel 98 billion in student debt. The SC struck down the 400 billion dollar plan to cancel student debt. It is an interesting debate. Those who worked their way through college will not get any pay back. Those who did not go to college on average make a lot less money
"College graduates are half as likely to be unemployed as their peers who only have a high school degree. Typical earnings for bachelor's degree holders are $36,000 or 84 percent higher than those whose highest degree is a high school diploma. College graduates on average make $1.2 million more over their lifetime."

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230609005393/en/Survey-Democrat-Republican-Independent-Voters-Agree-Capping-Federal-Student-Loans-for-Parents-and-Grad-Students-a-Necessary-Step-Toward-Addressing-Student-Debt-Crisis

It appears all parties agree that college loans are too easy to obtain and should be capped.

I believe more oversight is needed to work on colleges to lower their costs. My personal opinion is a college be capped on tuition and book costs. To even the playing field, the colleges should fund students who meet the criteria (grades and civic responsibility) through that college's scholarship program. We can all agree college costs are outrageous as they have no oversight to make college affordable. Of course that does nothing for students in debt today.

As far as current student debt, the current unemployment rate is extremely low so college students should have no issue finding a great job if they applied themselves and received a high GPA for their efforts. I think the grade qualifier should be applied in any plan for us (government) to pay back student loans. We know the non college graduate will make less than a million dollars a year than a college graduate. Education is an investment, those who maximized the investment by going to class and achieving high results should be rewarded. Those who went to college stayed on campus and did poorly should not be rewarded with our hard earned tax dollars. I have an issue paying for college party animals. I have a hunch those who did not stay on campus, worked one or 2 jobs to pay off their college tuition likely have an issue also.

Well, I am a proponent of free or greatly reduced higher education. However, that doesn't mean that I think they should pay off the loans. I do think that the loans should be altered to make them less suffocating. I think your points are overall reasonable - college has become exorbitantly expensive and the cost of college has far outpaced wages. I think that needs to be addressed with some kind of tuition capping and zero interest loans, or something along those lines. If we want to say there is a cost associated with college then that's fine, but we need to find a path to make it less overbearing on the student once they graduate. 

Quote:Those who went to college stayed on campus and did poorly should not be rewarded with our hard earned tax dollars. I have an issue paying for college party animals. I have a hunch those who did not stay on campus, worked one or 2 jobs to pay off their college tuition likely have an issue also.

I can only speak for myself here, but I wouldn't have an issue with my tax dollars going towards these people getting their debt paid off. I don't feel like I am getting screwed simply because I had to do something and then someone else after me didn't. I will always encourage my fellow American to receive something that I didn't if I believe it is for the benefit of society/country. If 100% free college was passed tomorrow I would be out in the streets and cheering. There will always be moochers, but these people are greatly outnumbered by the people who are actually working hard on their degree. 

[HarleyDog]

You took out the loan, PAY IT BACK!

[Luvnit2]

(07-14-2023, 05:09 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: Well, I am a proponent of free or greatly reduced higher education. However, that doesn't mean that I think they should pay off the loans. I do think that the loans should be altered to make them less suffocating. I think your points are overall reasonable - college has become exorbitantly expensive and the cost of college has far outpaced wages. I think that needs to be addressed with some kind of tuition capping and zero interest loans, or something along those lines. If we want to say there is a cost associated with college then that's fine, but we need to find a path to make it less overbearing on the student once they graduate. 


I can only speak for myself here, but I wouldn't have an issue with my tax dollars going towards these people getting their debt paid off. I don't feel like I am getting screwed simply because I had to do something and then someone else after me didn't. I will always encourage my fellow American to receive something that I didn't if I believe it is for the benefit of society/country. If 100% free college was passed tomorrow I would be out in the streets and cheering. There will always be moochers, but these people are greatly outnumbered by the people who are actually working hard on their degree. 

All good points.No doubt, if they can't reduce stop college tuition hikes, this problem will not go away. I like the idea of zero interest, but I think the student should have some skin in the game to get a great no cost loan. I think the qualifier is a 3.2 GPA or above. This way those not taking the experience seriously can pay for those who work hard. My point being, not all students would maintain the 3.2, so they pay interest per the terms established helping to offset the 3.2 or above students no interest loans.

[Dill]

(07-14-2023, 04:35 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: It appears Joe Biden is doing another work around to cancel 98 billion in student debt. The SC struck down the 400 billion dollar plan to cancel student debt. It is an interesting debate. Those who worked their way through college will not get any pay back. Those who did not go to college on average make a lot less money
"College graduates are half as likely to be unemployed as their peers who only have a high school degree. Typical earnings for bachelor's degree holders are $36,000 or 84 percent higher than those whose highest degree is a high school diploma. College graduates on average make $1.2 million more over their lifetime."

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230609005393/en/Survey-Democrat-Republican-Independent-Voters-Agree-Capping-Federal-Student-Loans-for-Parents-and-Grad-Students-a-Necessary-Step-Toward-Addressing-Student-Debt-Crisis

It appears all parties agree that college loans are too easy to obtain and should be capped.

I believe more oversight is needed to work on colleges to lower their costs. My personal opinion is a college be capped on tuition and book costs. To even the playing field, the colleges should fund students who meet the criteria (grades and civic responsibility) through that college's scholarship program. We can all agree college costs are outrageous as they have no oversight to make college affordable. Of course that does nothing for students in debt today.

As far as current student debt, the current unemployment rate is extremely low so college students should have no issue finding a great job if they applied themselves and received a high GPA for their efforts. I think the grade qualifier should be applied in any plan for us (government) to pay back student loans. We know the non college graduate will make less than a million dollars a year than a college graduate. Education is an investment, those who maximized the investment by going to class and achieving high results should be rewarded. Those who went to college stayed on campus and did poorly should not be rewarded with our hard earned tax dollars. I have an issue paying for college party animals. I have a hunch those who did not stay on campus, worked one or 2 jobs to pay off their college tuition likely have an issue also.

An excellent post Luvnit. Lots of reasonable ideas.

Regarding the bolded--you raise the question of who would be doing the capping, and how.

Public universities generally don't get to set tuition rates--the state legislatures who control their budgets do. 

That's their "oversight." 

But every public and private non-profit university has also a board of directors or equivalent.

I'm still ok with loans, but institutions lending and the government oversight need to be addressed. Loans were helpful to me back in the '70s, but back then a few thousand bucks was all one needed for a year's tuition and board. 

Back in the '80s, legislatures (esp. Republican) began cutting budgets at many public universities, which drove up tuition, in part to incentivize universities to become more like businesses and to acquire funding by partnering with businesses. That also motivated more competition with new building--student work out gyms, new dorms with "suites" rather than the old two students per room and communal bathroom set up, and then presidential "legacy" buildings. 

I don't know the whole story, but it seems to me that in the '90s or so, as tuition costs rose, lending institutions "captured" the student loan business guaranteed by the gov.  And Sallie Mae went private. Incentives went all the wrong way with that. Similar to what happened with HMOs, perhaps.

[*pally*]

(07-14-2023, 05:22 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: You took out the loan, PAY IT BACK!

Trump took out lots of loans and then declared bankruptcy 5 times thus not paying back loans.  Why can he not pay his bills and some former students who fell on hard times not be able to void their debts via bankruptcy?

[*Nately120*]

(07-16-2023, 02:28 PM)pally Wrote: Trump took out lots of loans and then declared bankruptcy 5 times thus not paying back loans.  Why can he not pay his bills and some former students who fell on hard times not be able to void their debts via bankruptcy?

It's smart business for me to use my money to buy stuff and then let other people pay off my student debt, rather than pay off my student loan debt and then have not as much stuff and paid off student loan debt.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

[CKwi88]

(07-16-2023, 02:28 PM)pally Wrote: Trump took out lots of loans and then declared bankruptcy 5 times thus not paying back loans.  Why can he not pay his bills and some former students who fell on hard times not be able to void their debts via bankruptcy?

Yeah, if we're going to be bailing people out anyways I'd rather it be people that will put that bailout money back into the economy rather than into their own pockets.

[Housh]

The convo isn’t about simply getting your loans paid for free

The reason this is even a convo is because the predatory nature of the loans that were taken out and how these loan companies knew beforehand that 90% of the ppl taking out loans were in fields that would never allow them to pay the loans off.

For future generations college loans should be federally mandated to not incur interest. If you take out 20k you should owe 20k. Student loans also should be some of the most forgiving loans out there. If you call your loan provider and tell them you want to skip payments for 4 months you should be able to. I also think they should mandate you sit down with a financial expert and a labor force expert who teaches you how much your degree track makes in the real world.


The issue with student loans is companies just gave them to you and because you don’t need credit to get these loans, alot of young ppl took these loans with no knowledge about money.

Let’s use a hypothetical example of zip lining.


Let’s say you have free roam access to a 1 acre zip line course for 2 hours. But the company doesn’t teach you how to use the equipment or anything. So you spend an hour just figuring out how to zipline. You’d feel like you were preyed on right? I think that’s where we are with these loans. You can obviously say ppl should’ve researched before taking the loans but that’s just not realistic. Some ppl come from the absolute gutter and college was pegged as the only way out.


I think it’s about empathy

[samhain]

(07-16-2023, 06:39 PM)Housh Wrote: The convo isn’t about simply getting your loans paid for free

The reason this is even a convo is because the predatory nature of the loans that were taken out and how these loan companies knew beforehand that 90% of the ppl taking out loans were in fields that would never allow them to pay the loans off.

For future generations college loans should be federally mandated to not incur interest. If you take out 20k you should owe 20k. Student loans also should be some of the most forgiving loans out there. If you call your loan provider and tell them you want to skip payments for 4 months you should be able to. I also think they should mandate you sit down with a financial expert and a labor force expert who teaches you how much your degree track makes in the real world.


The issue with student loans is companies just gave them to you and because you don’t need credit to get these loans, alot of young ppl took these loans with no knowledge about money.

Let’s use a hypothetical example of zip lining.


Let’s say you have free roam access to a 1 acre zip line course for 2 hours. But the company doesn’t teach you how to use the equipment or anything. So you spend an hour just figuring out how to zipline. You’d feel like you were preyed on right? I think that’s where we are with these loans. You can obviously say ppl should’ve researched before taking the loans but that’s just not realistic. Some ppl come from the absolute gutter and college was pegged as the only way out.


I think it’s about empathy

I feel like at some point it all just became payola for universities.  It's profitable to tell every high school kid in the country that they need a degree to get anywhere in life, then be the entity that provides said degree.  It's even more profitable when the government will write checks to people with practically zero credit or financial education for large amounts of money to be forked over directly to you.  You know what you do then?  You raise tuition and go swimming in your government-funded money bin.  The kids don't know enough to care whether their entry level 60k a year job (if they are lucky) will be enough to pay for loans and the cost of living, and it likely will be close.
Hopefully kids are starting to get the message that college isn't the guaranteed career path that it was once promoted as.  It sounds absolutely insane, but from a profitability standpoint, you'd be better off making a complete moron out of yourself on Youtube than you would studying hard and incurring debt at school.  

[Millhouse]

I say yes, but only for certain professions such as teachers, law enforcement, nursing, and bbq entrepreneurs in my local region.

Otherwise no. Fix the loan system and regulate the plethora of Scam Universities with skyrocketing overrated tuition costs before helping those out with degrees that actually matter.

[Dill]

(07-16-2023, 09:47 PM)samhain Wrote: I feel like at some point it all just became payola for universities.  It's profitable to tell every high school kid in the country that they need a degree to get anywhere in life, then be the entity that provides said degree.  It's even more profitable when the government will write checks to people with practically zero credit or financial education for large amounts of money to be forked over directly to you.  You know what you do then?  You raise tuition and go swimming in your government-funded money bin.  The kids don't know enough to care whether their entry level 60k a year job (if they are lucky) will be enough to pay for loans and the cost of living, and it likely will be close.
Hopefully kids are starting to get the message that college isn't the guaranteed career path that it was once promoted as.  It sounds absolutely insane, but from a profitability standpoint, you'd be better off making a complete moron out of yourself on Youtube than you would studying hard and incurring debt at school.  

To whom does the profit accrue? 

[Arturo Bandini]

I say yes because education should be free and having the right to learn is a freedom.

If other people are upset about that just reimbourse them too. They suddenly find this on point.

[basballguy]

(07-17-2023, 08:15 AM)Arturo Bandini Wrote: I say yes because education should be free and having the right to learn is a freedom.

If other people are upset about that just reimbourse them too. They suddenly find this on point.

What's your plan for paying to 200k teachers in higher education?  And then the other 200k employees that aren't teachers?  

[Dill]

(07-14-2023, 04:35 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: It appears Joe Biden is doing another work around to cancel 98 billion in student debt. The SC struck down the 400 billion dollar plan to cancel student debt. It is an interesting debate. Those who worked their way through college will not get any pay back. Those who did not go to college on average make a lot less money
"College graduates are half as likely to be unemployed as their peers who only have a high school degree. Typical earnings for bachelor's degree holders are $36,000 or 84 percent higher than those whose highest degree is a high school diploma. College graduates on average make $1.2 million more over their lifetime."

Just want to register a general complaint about higher ed and funding here--not shooting the messenger (Luvnit, in this case). 

What bothers me--tremendously--about discussion of higher ed and loans nowadays is the assumption that getting a college degree is only about a "career" and making money. 

It's not wrong for people to be compensating for losing years of earning to learn something that can't be learned on the job, and then be compensated for that. But GETTING MORE MONEY shouldn't be the primary reason for attending college. 

There used to be a distinction between "education" and "training" which was best articulated by Cardinal Newman back in the 19th century. 

"Training" is what you learn for your employer so he can make money with your skills. (You get some of that back as wages or salary.) 

"Education" is what you learn for you, to develop your own capacities for yourself and to understand the world around you. The latter is especially important for citizens of a democracy, who should participate in their own governance. It is "learning," not "training," and includes many subjects you may not "need" to know while directly earning a living--like antecedents to the U.S. Constitution or what conditioned the rise of fascism in the interwar years or the contrast between pre-and post-scientific understanding of nature or a foreign language or art history.

This was still a prominent reason for attending college up into the early '70s. From that point though, "job training" began to dominant the thinking of students, many of whom became public school teachers, and of university administrations and state legislatures. By the '90s, higher education was just HIGHER VOCATIONAL TRAINING at most state universities. One of the original causes of this shift was surely disciplinary--after the turmoil of the '60s, the economic upper class wanted to shape universities which didn't produce "radicals," or "critical thinkers" as we might call them today. Industry and government wanted "problem-solvers" who could be plugged into jobs without overarching questions about the justness of our economic-political system.

Now two generations of students have gone through the system without ever hearing that education could be anything other than a job getter, and to get a job you learn what your employers want you to learn. Some are mad they were told that college gets you a job, and they got college and didn't get a job. 

[Arturo Bandini]

(07-17-2023, 08:37 AM)basballguy Wrote: What's your plan for paying to 200k teachers in higher education?  And then the other 200k employees that aren't teachers?  

Tax the riches, tax the churches. Give less to the military complex.

Problem solved. 

[HarleyDog]

(07-17-2023, 09:37 AM)Arturo Bandini Wrote:  Give less to the military complex.

[Stewy]

greatly sweeten and simplify the GI Bill. We have a shortfall in the military. Let people earn their way out of debt through service.

[Arturo Bandini]

(07-17-2023, 11:34 AM)Stewy Wrote: greatly sweeten and simplify the GI Bill.  We have a shortfall in the military.  Let people earn their way out of debt through service.

Not a bad idea. How many years ? 

[HarleyDog]

(07-17-2023, 11:34 AM)Stewy Wrote: greatly sweeten and simplify the GI Bill.  We have a shortfall in the military.  Let people earn their way out of debt through service.

I 100% agree with this and was going to say something similar. The military has a job for just about any career choice. Plus, if you already have a degree, your acceptance into officer candidate school is greatly increased if you want it.