Nothing is gained if a student doesn’t “suffered through student debt
but should only have to pay a reasonable interest rate after they graduate from college.”
So many people tell me, why should my tax dollars help someone pay off student loan debt?
I didn’t go to college. These are the same people getting the EIC. Yet, you don’t hear anyone saying, I didn’t have kids so why should my tax dollars pay to help you raise yours?
I don’t have an issue supporting paying other people’s student loan debts.
However, by taxing people to cover these debts we are letting the universities off the hook.
Universities that in many cases have multi billion dollar endowments. Universities need accountability and get their expenses under control too.
SO Stop building those big fancy new wings.
Forgiving debt is just step one.
Many more things need to happen to solve the root issues.
In the early ’90s, Hank Rowan gave $100 million to a tiny public university
in Glassboro, New Jersey: not Harvard, not Yale, not even to his alma mater, MIT. What was Rowan thinking? And why has it proven so difficult for other philanthropists to follow his lead. To learn more about the topics covered in this episode, visit www.RevisionistHistory.com This worth a listen to:
Revisionist History: My Little Hundred Million on Apple Podcasts
Oh you hear that, I’ve heard from multiple people how much they
resent school taxes because, A, their kids are grown. Or, B, they don’t have kids, Or, C, they paid for private school. This is the seed of Anarchy. Actually some people do have an issue with tax dollars going to schools, education is
not as important here as it is in China and if that doesn’t change, we WILL
fall behind. Education and healthcare should be a given in this country. Because it will reduce debt which will spur spending which will create jobs which will raise the stock market which will be good for you.
There /are/ people who make the kids argument, there is a small town in
the great plains somewhere a while back that voted to stop supporting kid’s education, the school was closed, the three remaining kids had to fend for themselves. It’s an argument that can be twisted any way someone wants.
For example, I pay taxes that maintain roads I will never drive on. It’s a ludicrous and selfish argument. It’s about making your community better.
While I’m annoyed with news about local schools, it doesn’t occur to me to
cry about my tax dollars going to them. I have No kids and no plan to ever have any but I’m happy to contribute to bettering my community any way I can and if that means paying taxes to help other people’s kids and/or cancel student debt, sign me up!
Why should my tax dollars build highways in Indiana?
Oh yeah, I live in a society and education, like highways, is a necessary component of our future… 1.) That’s not how tax dollars work. Federal taxes are just deleted from existence. 2.) The government already owns like 92% of student loan debt. 3.) Again, your tax dollars don’t fund the federal government, but you do already fund local schools…
Are we discussing your Fed tax dollars or State/Local?
Hint: they are not the same. if student debt gets wiped, do the people who
paid their debt off responsibly with hard work (obviously) get some sort of kickback? Yes, at the very least they’ll get the “kickback” of a much healthier society/economy. But I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to direct kickbacks like federal tax breaks for them as well. Sooo transactional. Do I get a kick back for all the tax benefits homeowners got while I was renting? Do I get a kickback for a fire department I never used? Do I get a kick back for all the taxes used to build roads because I don’t have a car? Yeah it’s called an educated society and to take care of you when you’re old and your grandchildren thrive.
That’s your kickback.
YES as a matter of fact they do. If a young Black Woman like the one I used to be is not saddled by student debt like I was she will, perhaps, open a business that eventually hires my (now 11) year old niece (or a daughter if I had kids). The kickback is to the Black… children belonging to the Black adults that did indeed pay off their student debts.
Their kids will get a leg up if the Black students of today can more easily transition into forming their own businesses unburdened by student debt.
How about all the people who chose to go to a trade school or delay college because they didn’t want to take out loans…..if they knew it would be forgiven they would have chosen differently. I’m really mad that my parents only had to spend $60k for a house in the 70’s, and I had to spend $300k in 2018…the bank should just let me have it for $60k…see how dumb that sounds?
Students who could get their debt wiped now are facing a different economy now than you were then. Costs of education are lots higher, and the increase
in earning potential their degrees confer now is less than it was for you.
The average payment is about $400/month. And that money literally leaves the economy. So, forgiving that debt would add $400/month per person back into the economy which would be significant and beneficial for everyone.
And if we overthrow the military industrial complex and don’t invade any other countries or try to topple any more dictators, do the countries that we previously invaded get some sort of compensation? Sooo many questions.
If that’s the case, let’s get rid of social security. I’m tired of giving old people handouts. By the time we retire, social security will no longer be sustainable anyway. Student loans are literally predatory loans. There’s only so much work I can do when my interest rates are 6-9% for government loans.
Even more than that, it’s because public colleges …
ARE NO LONGER FREE.
When I was in college in the early 80s public college was free.
We still took out loans, and interest rates were even higher then. But COSTS were TINY in comparison to today (after accounting for inflation).
My total student debt when I got my degree in 1988 was about $10k,
but my tuition was only about $700/semester at a state university. I just looked up tuition at a comparable school last night.
It was $13k/semester. Huge difference when income hasn’t grown that much. 1/
My total student debt when I got my degree in 1988 was about $10k, but my tuition was only about $700/semester at a state university.
I just looked up tuition at a comparable school last night. It was $13k/semester.
Huge difference when income hasn’t grown that much.
College has become big business. Just like everything else.
Greed, pure and simple.
I paid mine off and hope that nobody else has to go through the same. I don’t want a “kickback”. Ten Examples of Welfare for the Rich and Corporations | HuffPost
An American Bailout! If the banks can get bailed out so can student loan borrowers. Someone’s got to pay for the debt. Our reward will be more taxes. Perhaps the first generation of Americans with no collective sense of responsibility to provide for those younger than us. The door is too narrow now; not enough young people can get in. If you don’t really grow up yourself you don’t accept the responsibilities that go along with it..
So the system created this problem.
Maybe that system isn’t worth preserving. I don’t think it should be paid off. People voluntarily took out this loan. If you paid off any type of debt it would boost the economy. Now I think colleges should have to help students get jobs in career fields and that interest on the loans should be very low.
It’s an investment in yourself. Don’t want the debt, don’t make the investment.
What about, “I drive a 15 year old car because I paid off my student debts, but, sure, you flake on your loan and live high.”
That’s the point. We DONT want people driving 15 year old cars.
We want them purchasing new ones which helps the auto industry make
cars and employ people that didn’t go to college. If we forgive student debt consumption goes up helping the economy. Your payments on federal student loans is part of the government’s budget. Which workers would you like them to lay off when that payment goes away and who would you like to pick up the tab on paying off the loan that you said you’d pay?
“I used to churn my own butter and use whale oil to light my home!”
That’s how people sound to me when they want future generations to endure hardships just because they had to themselves. I should mention, that I am Canadian, so I don’t really understand the student debt crisis the same way.
We have student debt, but it’s nowhere near as astronomical. But If our government decided to make post secondary free I wouldn’t argue against it because I had to pay. Your heart is in the right place. Taking out loans is a personal decision one makes towards their future. Thankfully not everyone wants for others to suffer.
There are also those who get grants/scholarships to avoid debt, which takes
a lot of work. Let’s make this world better!! That’s true but there were many predatory institutions promising careers that just aren’t there.
Just ask the art and drama student grads. Not all kids have practical parents. My daughter’s friend borrowed $ for performing arts school. We thought it was crazy. … I incurred student loan debt but only in my final year of law school when I became pregnant and couldn’t work part time as well. Yes, I paid it all off. So what?
My 24 yo grandson has to borrow for community college in-state tuition
even w/financial aid. Ludicrous! I grew up in that era. Besides all that we had vacations too. We were considered middle class. We didn’t want anything & my parents weren’t worried about money. It was a good life. My parents grew up in that era tool & made me feel like a failure bcoz I struggled & couldn’t do it like them. It seems every time I get close to owning a home, something big happens to change the price. You don’t think student loan forgiveness is a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich?
I get that college is too expensive and student loans are a huge burden, but asking a person who never went to college to use his tax dollars to bail out a Harvard student seems unfair. Never mind they tricked most people into saying you need to get an education to succeed and then we can’t find jobs
that warrant $50,000 in debt and we’re in debt the rest of our lives
(also because the forgiveness programs have failed us too.)
Do you really go through your life being “tricked” this often?
It’s called Making Choices.
“I paid my debts and you should pay your debts” is a perfectly reasonable stance. Especially when the alternative means that I have to pay my debts as well as yours… “I paid my $5,000 of debt back then, so why can’t you pay your $200,000 of debt now? Sounds fair to me!” 1 – I’m still paying my debts as well. 2 – someone having more debt than me doesn’t mean I should have to pay their debt as well as mine.. Additionally, the amount of debt is irrelevant.
You take out debt with an agreement to the debtor that you’ll eventually pay
it back. If you can’t pay it back, you shouldn’t take out the debt. You need to understand the people who are pro debt forgiveness were also pro government involvement in creating this debt structure that doesn’t allow bankruptcy. These people are emotional and not in the slightest rational.
It’s a lot easier to pay debts when you inherit lots of money from your elders.
Boomers, by and large, are not doing that for millennials.
Boomers have failed the younger generations in more than one way.
No doubt about that.
But the fact remains-if you take a loan you’re agreeing to pay it back and if you’re incapable of paying back your debt, you shouldn’t take it/expect others to pay it for you… I think you’re confusing the college debt you might have accrued with the college debt of today. I graduated 6 years ago and I’m still paying off my debt as we speak. It’s not about the amount, it’s about honoring what you agreed to do!!!
My front left rim collapsed in a pot hole while doing 60 and so should yours. We live in a punitive society. Some call it “crabs in the barrel” syndrome. Just sickening … I am sick of it. Colleges and higher education shouldn’t be like the private prison industry and milk our youth for 100’s of thousands just to learn to make a living. They can’t make a living if they owe 100’s of thousands of dollars as a graduation gift.
Not even specifically on this matter but have been trying to figure this one out for years.
When did we become so selfish we genuinely don’t want to see the world be a better place for the following generations? Like I thought that was the entire purpose of progression. Cancelling Student debt is regressive. People with a college degree have greater lifetime wealth potential, greater job availability and greater job security.
1970 Tuition at the Univ. of Conn. : FREE Yale: $2,550
1980 Yale: $6,210. The average cost of college tuition, room and board, is $5,000-$6,000.
1981 Pres. Reagan signs Student Loan law with the requirement that borrowers pay banks a 4% origination fee. For the first time, the cost of attending college will run into five figures. Harvard and Stanford Universities and Bennington College announce that costs for tuition, board, and room will top $10,000.
1990 Nearly 60% of full-time college students in the U. S. receive some type of financial aid. Bennington College, VT, was the most expensive college in 1989-90. Tuition for undergraduates: $16,495. The 2nd most expensive: Hampshire College: $15,070.
1999 The average annual tuition for four-year private institutions is $16,531. 2011 Average yearly tuition at U.S. private universities: $27,293. 2020 Average yearly tuition at U.S. private universities is now up to $35,087
Same College: My tuition in 1987 cost $4500 ~ My Nephew paid $52,000 in 2004!!!
Solutions do not come from blaming others. When the government started guaranteeing student loans, the price of college went up to as much as the government would guarantee. Now you have 22-year-olds with no credit history graduating college with a student loan the size of a mortgage.
We’re being fleeced. People are just annoyed at the Boomers who didn’t go through it acting like it never happened.
The boomers will get it when they go to sell their homes and cash in their 401k’s at their current prices and find out the generations behind them can’t afford them. or “…a worse place for each new generation a good thing.”
Fun fact: when I went to college in the early 80s PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES WERE STILL FREE.
For me, it’s about taking responsibility for their “adult” decisions. Kind of like buying a house and paying your mortgage. Do I think that university tuition is outrageous? Yes. Do I think that some houses are overpriced? Yes. Where do we draw the line? That was before the “anti-tax movement” duped regular working-class Americans to vote against their own (and the country’s) interests.
Let’s make student debt interest free.
1) we do not need everyone going to college 2) a lot of Americans can offer college, why tax others who cannot/will not utilize it. 3) I suffered through student debt, but it kept me focused and motivated on my goals.
Where I work, with exception of security, food service, maintenance, and
a few other positions, a degree is a requirement. However, countless individuals got hired long before degrees were mandated, who make six-figure salaries. They are the loudest critics of just this.
I think we should help with student debt. But people need to realize there are many of us who paid off our student debt who are now unemployed and are suffering because we have no savings thanks to paying off the debt.
Do we get some of that money back?
I had no student debt, because public university tuition was affordable to anyone working part time. I’d like everyone to have that. If you want to provide more grants etc. that allow schools to keep raising tuition and fees to add layers administration and perks – count me out. Everyone wants a better world for each new generation. That doesn’t mean that we remove the aspects of life that teach them to make value judgments about their life and discover their path forward. We need to dig deeper into what makes college so expensive as well.
I still don’t get this. Lives for so many people could be so much better if we invested more in them and got away from the “suffering makes you tougher” rhetoric. One planet, one life…why don’t we make it the best for everyone.
I had a full grant from our government, I was never charged a penny. It was different times back then. It transformed the lives of millions and I have always tried to pay back the investment society made in my life.
I paid my student loans, but it took ages and an unexpected windfall. I didn’t have kids and couldn’t even consider buying a house. We should not perpetuate that for the next generations. I was a first generation college student and I suffered and paid off all my student debt (at 8% interest) and I think student debt should be forgiven. I think about all the dollars.
I could’ve used to help grow the economy and my savings. I don’t want others to go through that. Had an argument with my mom about student loan debt. She didn’t understand what the problem was. Except she went to college in the 70’s when it cost maybe $500 a year to attend vs today which is $25,000-$50,000.
(1/?) I was called lazy because I took out loans from an older gentleman when
I worked retail. He went on a giant rant about that’s what’s wrong with our generation and all we want are handouts, etc. I let him vent and then asked him what he paid for college.
(2/?) I then began to list off every few from the school, from classes, all the way down to the technology fees with average amounts. Then I explained how many times you have to take classes that don’t quite make sense in order to get your degree, waitlists, etc.
(3/?) I went even further and explained how difficult it can be to find a job that works with your schedule that offers decent hours. When I had finally finished he simply walked away. Watching his expression change over the course of all of this was extremely entertaining.
Instead of making student debt an individual problem which is mainly focused around bad investment in financially useless post secondary education, we will socialize it and create moral hazard and make the populist financially responsible…
that will show everyone…All the banks, auto industry, farmers suffered from debt too and what did the gov do? they bailed them out…the US Government needs to erase student debt in order for the economy to thrive. Wiping out debt is a temporary bandage. Create jobs so they can pay back their loans and live a good life. Jobs is the secret… Your tweet seriously needs to be chkd. Why have 680 billionaires been able to extract 50 trillion dollars from the Working-class the past 40 years?
No, those greedy sociopaths need to pay the money they’ve stolen from us.
FULL STOP! America’s 1% Has Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% | Time
Not all student debt is held by young folks. I lost my job at age 50 during the Great Recession. To reset my career I took a student loan to get a graduate degree. The plan was to pay off the loan in 2 years. Alas the reset never happened and I have 0 hope of repaying the loan.
I too, suffered through student debt. What I am in favor of is, students
pay 1/2 of their tuition then work off the other 50%, in the field they went to college for or a mastered skill they possess.
Do want to relieve debt levels for graduates…but higher education costs are beyond ridiculous (to some extent due to existing govt subsidies).
I don’t like reinforcing bad costing practices. Any way to clear Ed debt on behalf of students at a discount/compromise. I will probably not be able to retire. My loan ten years ago was $39,000. I paid every month for that ten years and still owe 42,000. At one point my loan had blossomed to $58,000.
The banks are the problem, but people blame us.
Wonder how many of those who feel like student debt shouldn’t be paid off have filed bankruptcy, or foreclosure, or didn’t pay their debts, but still had some protections and ways to get out from under it all. I don’t even want my debt paid, just give me the same protections. In Canada, the generation(s) that introduced publicly-funded healthcare, which ultimately lead to our universal healthcare, decided that though they used to have to pay for healthcare, it doesn’t mean future generations should. If that generation did it, we can do it for other things!
More to the point, reversing a bad change. my generation (68) was not burdened with education debt. My parents were not burdened with medical debt. These issues were bad policy choices by our leadership in the past 50 years. We can make the system better.
I make a good living. I paid my way through undergrad, grad and medical school, and I think helping out with forgiving student loans for those that got ripped off from for profit schools, and making 2 years of college free is great. Let’s make this world a better place for all.
By having to pull myself up by my boot straps w/o help it taught me many lessons including perseverance, faith, independence, and that if I want something I have to do the work to figure out how to get it. I didn’t graduate HS but have a BS in Nursing and owned a business
@ChrisMurrell15
I’m totally good with free college tuition from this day forward. But there are people who made the decision to go to county college, commute from home when they would have rather gone away to a better school in an effort to avoid debt-what do they get from tuition forgiveness?
If we are canceling all debt for student loans and future people can sign up and not have to get a loan I’m all for it. But if we are only wiping out what is there and in the future we will have to pay for college, then I’m not for it. I want schools to be held accountable for their fraud like it was and all of those for profit ones the devos family is connected to should come next. Forgive the debts and shut down the scams! We cannot keep funding known scams.
Back in the late 70s unemployment was at 13%, mortgage interest rates were over 17%. It was not easy and we didn’t blame our parents.
We did what we did until times get better. Hard times make strong people. Keep positive people in your life, get rid of the rest.
Public college was FREE back then.
Back then there were enormous public investments in the public good
(paid by the reasonable progressive taxes and corporate taxes we used to have). And you were benefiting from them (so was I), even if you fail to realize that.
When Ronald Reagan took office. I was no fan of Nixon and his own Southern Strategy and War on Drugs but Reagan took his bad and devise policies and gave them steroids. On the other hand, Nixon did create the EPA, OHSU and signed the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts. Tom McCall was the Republican Governor here in Oregon during Nixon’s time in office and he also created policies to clean up or maintain a healthy environment in the state. When did Republicans stop giving all shits about the environment, in the name of corporate $$$?
Even if some selfish, nasty person wishes that everyone suffers the same trials and tribulations that he did, it’s not the same! I racked up $10K in student loans. Today kids are borrowing more than that for one year. It’s their entire slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ the key word isn’t great, it’s ‘AGAIN’ They want absolutely no change. Any growth is viewed as bad. Any change in norms is bad. They view the country as ‘theirs’ and think others are trying to take ‘their’ country away from them.
Demanding that our young people suffer the exact same burden we did is ludicrous.
It’s like demanding 18 year old’s treat their medical conditions with leeches because that’s what they did in the 1500s. Student debt is why I didn’t finish/go back to school. Instead I have been working full-time supporting my son and planning/saving for HIS future. Recently, my employer announced a program to pay 100% for many degrees. Still paying off old loans but looking forward to getting my degree!
I’m not interested in canceling student debt until there is education equity across all neighborhoods in the US. The high school graduation rate in Cleveland is approximately 40%. That’s a lot of black and brown folks who don’t have the privilege to go to college… I never had a pension so why should anyone else? I never had healthcare so why should anyone else? I never had workplace safety so why should anyone else? The race to the bottom is staggering in its blindness. #Love #Life #Hope #Humanity #Equity #Opportunity
It’s a byproduct of the victim mindset. This happened to me. Wha wha wha.
It’s not fair if it doesn’t happen to you too. But hey. It’s fine if I win the lottery and you don’t. Suck it up buttercup. For me.. this past year when newer generations virtually made me a prisoner in my home so they could “get on with their lives” spreading disease. Community is a give and take. Not just take. I won’t support people who think I am expendable and don’t care if they kill me.
How about making the world a better place by teaching finance and responsibility.
No one “has” to suffer, they just have to be aware of the choices they are making. Why are student loans an acceptable cross poor people are expected
to bear? The original argument was, we will provide this to help poor people get an education. The truth, we are going to con poor people into these loans so we can profit off of them most of their working lives.
I call it the “Good Enough Syndrome”, as in, “It was good enough for my granddaddy (grandmother) and daddy (momma), so it’s good enough for me.. and it will be good enough for you too. “ A lot of people saying that, also got student debt before college prices skyrocketed.
What you used to be able to get for about $3k in 1980, now runs you about $25k https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_330.10.asp
Bonus: Covid Pandemic Forces Families to Rethink Nursing Home Care (msn.com)