Forgive my $70,000 in student loans

I don't understand. There is no forgiveness so it applies to no student loans.

We are talking about what is being proposed. Try to keep up Joe.

You'll get nothing, and like it!

You won this lottery. For those of us who decided to pay their kids' college without using loans, we just got totally fvcked for that decision. Such is life in today's America.

Since the Dems want to print more money they don’t have, I will need to find a way to take out student loans for myself, my wife and both kids in the maximum amount that the feds are going to allow and hold the money in an account for future education expenses. Bailing out a select generation over all others is wrong and stupid. I paid for my education, I worked hard to save for my kids’ educations (and I expect for them to contribute to their own), and I don’t feel it is my responsibility to pay for yours.

Yeah that’s a bummer. What are ya gonna do about it pops? Your kids won’t amount to much if they have your bad attitude. Not like you’re paying for my loans so what’s it matter to you?

I came up with $10,000, because recently Biden said $10,000.

Definitely no sour grapes for me. I will admit that recently Elizabeth Warren gave some compelling reasons why student loans should be forgiven. It made me not feel as bad as I did before about the idea, BUT, I am still against having ANY student loans forgiven (other than some crazy hardship).

I don't care about fairness to other college graduates who didn't get this deal. Anyone (including the current ones now) who took loans knew what they were getting into. I DO care though about people who didn't go to college feeling like they got the shaft once again. I don't care about how political parties appear...I ONLY care about people, and there are a lot of people who MIGHT have gone to college but for the cost and instead decided to begin working. Those people typically end up making less money over their careers than the people who went to college, and now, that's just a kick in the pants if those college grads get all or some of their cost forgiven.

I also don't want to blanket encourage more people to go to college. College should be for maybe the top 3rd of students in my opinion. We can use some above-average intelligence people in jobs that don't require a college education, and we have far too many dummies managing to get through college who had no business being there. Also, too many already attempt college who are not equipped to handle it, and so they drop out. If we forgive loans or go the way of free college, there will be even more of those types of people.

What we really need to do is fast-track getting some legal immigrants to come here to help fill the job vacancies, and then there needs to be a campaign targeting at changing the minds of people about college vs. no college. Society needs to once again respect those people to perform service jobs.

That's just the wrong attitude completely. The goal should be to make a plan to get the things you want and to be able to retire comfortably when and where you want to. You do that based only on what YOU can control. You shouldn't give a sh!t about the Joneses or some policy change that would have been nice for you had it happened sooner. People should make their plans based on how things for them are TODAY. They should stick to that plan sans any emergency and then get back on the plan immediately as soon as the emergency is over (and it had really better be an emergency).

I paid for my kids' college too. So what? I made a plan to make it happen. I haven't been "totally fvcked" because of it. Right now they are talking about forgiving $10,000 in loans. For my two kids, that's a total of $20,000. Big freakin' deal. Can't even buy a nice car for that.

97% of them would choose to pay the loan back.

I agree with many of the things you wrote (which happens sometimes and sometimes not). A vastly under-utilized career path in the "everyone should go to college" era that we live in is the skilled trade route. There are too many colleges out there that accept anyone that applies and pump out degrees that are of little value in the real world. The current education system has somewhat strayed from the goal of an education (which is to prepare individuals for careers) by putting so much focus on subjects of little consequence. I would rather see my child enroll in something like an electrical lineman program (where after five years of paid on the job training they will have a professional license that can earn them well over six figures) than see them go to some liberal arts college and get a masters in some frivolous degree where they make less than $50k a year and have a pile of debt at the end.

I’ve tried to listen to proponents of this idea of student loan forgiveness of all the amounts thrown out there ($10,000, $50,000, all). But still cannot get behind it. It just seems like a ploy for votes and doesn’t really help fix the underlying issue.

Think about the pause on student loan payments during Covid. It has been 2 years and every time they look at restarting it, they extend it because people are not ready and they never will be because they got used to having that extra amount in their accounts and inflate their lifestyles.

Will it help millennial homeownership? Probably not. If anything, it will inflate costs of housing more.

Will the U.S get anything in return like service (Americorps, Military, teaching, etc.)? Nope.

Will this help most people or how about even most low income people? Nope. This helps 13 percent of the population. 39 percent of these loans for the 13 percent will be for graduate loans and a majority of the 13 percent are not from a low income background (per the Atlantic).

I keep asking myself, if this goes through, what’s the plan for the next crop of students taking on loans? Loan forgiveness every 4 years? If anything, it will inflate the cost of college more.

My plan would be first to fix the forgiveness programs in place so they are effective and then add more. People should provide a service to qualify for forgiveness. If the gov’t is going to forgive some loan amount without any service required, it should focus on certain low income thresholds for forgiveness, not have it apply to everyone. Stop pushing college as the only way and promote alternative career paths.

I think I'll take out $100k in loans to get an art history degree or maybe graphic design, before it's too late.

You can't be serious that forgiveness wouldn't help people, especially low income/diverse communities, who traditionally have a lot harder of a time paying back that money?

This is the first post that has at least raised that maybe we should be doing something to curb lenders. Whatever side you fall on, college costs too much & interest rates are out of control. That system is not sustainable & you can't just convince me to victim blame 18 year olds for going into debt. I'm 30 now & had no clue what I was doing at 18. I've paid off almost all of my student loan debt. If others don't have to get gauged, I'm all for it. But we need policy aimed at preventing this from happening again.

My parents worked jobs in college that paid for their entire tuition & then bought a house that doubled in value when they sold it 5ish years ago.

When we have these conversations, let's at least acknowledge how unchecked greed from lenders has caused a huge problem that students didn't have to face decades ago. If we have money for war & to bail out banks, we have money to help students who have been taken advantage of.

You'd never make it in those fields.

As on a lot of broader scope issues Flagpole has this one right as well.

I don't care about fairness to other college graduates who didn't get this deal. Anyone (including the current ones now) who took loans knew what they were getting into.

No one deceived anyone into taking these loans, in fact these same whiners are part of the responsibility for unchecked absurd rise in College Prices, notice I did not say costs, because over time, while Salaries have gone up and services etc. Things, because of technology should also scale way better than yesteryear, the availability of easy money, has made this THE problem, that and dead beats refusing to pay theirs back. Unless you are out of work legitimately which according to "Biden world stats" would be almost impossible? There is actually no reason for a real deferment.

Tell you what, I would reconsider..if the government gave me back the $20K I paid back 30 years ago(raising 4 kids in NJ), with time value of money interest and mulitplier... Money used to double every 7 years..

So write my check for $120K or so(it has not always been 7 years lately)? And I will endorse this, why should some have to pay or have paid and others forgiven?

How 'bout that Equity?

I also think many fail to grasp the notion that while these would be forgiven, but someone is paying, if you don't think so..there is no way to help you.

Even at $10K forgiveness there is a $321B shortfall, I read.

You realize they already have these programs in place, right?

A good friend of mine works for the VA and is in something called their EDRP program (Educational Debt Reduction Program). Reimburses you for up to $40,000 of her student loans per year for 5 years (so you could do $200,000 total). You make the payments and around a month after your year ends, you get a check for the previous years total that you paid.

It's a 5 year program...you can't pay your loan off early or you won't get re-imbursed. If you have 50k in debt, you can claim $10k per year in reimbursement. If you have 100k in debt, the program will repay you 20k per year.

What she did was get a low interest loan from her bank for her yearly max amount of $15,000 (so total after 5 years of $75k). Pays off her yearly max in one payment two months before her year is up, then a month after that year date, gets a the money back in her account for the reimbursement. She just then invests it so its making enough to cover the interest she'll have to pay the bank...then repeats the process every year.

I know there are other programs out there. The Army has one called Loan Repayment Program. Teach4America (i believe that is the name) is another one for teachers in low income schools/areas.

It's a corrupt system. Colleges hike up their prices and then send the kids to the banks to get student loans. The banks know the loans cannot be forgiven so they make loans for any degree, any college, any amount. I've seen several people take out loans over 100k for meaningless degrees with no chance to pay them back. Let the students declare bankruptcy for these loans and let the banks squeal. The govt should have never been involved in this.

I think the group that gets screwed over the most are those that are about to enter college.

This is the group that will be the only ones in student loan debt with an extra expense nobody else will have in an economy fixed for that. That is why this is wrong.

For the record, I will benefit greatly from the bill because I have two children just out of college that I will be helping pay the loans off. But I am firmly against it for the above reason.

We need to fix the problem first if we are going to offer forgiveness to just one group.