Two questions about Biden's student loan plan

Ncaa ruler wrote:

It does nothing to educate people. He is talking about paying off debt of college educated people instead of giving the money to the poor who need it. Democrats should be disgusted that he would take money from the working class to give it to doctors and lawyers and accountants and engineers.

So does paying for Trump's golfing trips help educate people? And does it take NOT take money from the working class?

Did Biden actually say anything about student debt forgiveness? I’m sure there are real things to complain about instead of this

The solution going forward for student loan debt is so simple. Two things need to happen. 1. Is the government get out of the loan business. 2. Students can only borrow from the college they are attending.

If the colleges/universities were on the hook for student defaults, they wouldn't loan money for worthless degrees and they wouldn't accept unqualified students.

govlie1 wrote:

Did Biden actually say anything about student debt forgiveness? I’m sure there are real things to complain about instead of this

You know how to use the internet. You could figure that out if Biden said anything about student loans and whether he will skip the legislative process to forgive them.

And the fact that Dems are making this an up front this when there are, as you say, REAL thing to worry about, says a lot about them.

Quasi-Boom wrote:

govlie1 wrote:

Did Biden actually say anything about student debt forgiveness? I’m sure there are real things to complain about instead of this

You know how to use the internet. You could figure that out if Biden said anything about student loans and whether he will skip the legislative process to forgive them.

And the fact that Dems are making this an up front this when there are, as you say, REAL thing to worry about, says a lot about them.

I can use the internet and get my news from beyond lrc. AOC and the progressives have asked joe to forgive student loans, but joe isn’t progressive. Joe is center-right.

No it does not educate people and it requires tax dollars. I don't understand why that would make you think Biden should hand money over to people for no reason. The old saying is that you shouldn't throw good money after bad money. So you want even more of your money wasted?

govlie1 wrote:

Quasi-Boom wrote:

You know how to use the internet. You could figure that out if Biden said anything about student loans and whether he will skip the legislative process to forgive them.

And the fact that Dems are making this an up front this when there are, as you say, REAL thing to worry about, says a lot about them.

I can use the internet and get my news from beyond lrc. AOC and the progressives have asked joe to forgive student loans, but joe isn’t progressive. Joe is center-right.

Right. Exactly. You can figure out what center-right Biden has said about this by using the internet. I think you should do exactly that, and then come back and report the results. Basically, you could answer you own question that you posed here on LRC by using the internet. That's what I'm suggesting.

wwdwefwefe

versy tile wrote:

No. You haven't been listening. My best friend socked money away in a 401k for the pat 5 years after college while I paid off my student loans. I paid off the $50k while he put the $50k in his 401k which has increased in value to $75k. So now you want his loans forgiven and he can keep his 401k but I will have nothing because I paid my debt. Freeloaders should not be rewarded. Responsible behavior should be rewarded or we will see even more irresponsible behavior.

Well, this is kind of exactly what I did.

I figured I could earn higher returns trading with the money than the interest on the student loans. I also figured someday the loans might be partially or all forgiven.

It is an important skill in life (and the Dave Ramsey crowd often misses this with their ALL DEBT BAD message), to distinguish between very manageable low interest debt (mortgage, student loans), and bad high interest debt (credit cards). It is not a horrible thing to carry low interest debt.

He's saying that student loan debt relief would be a massive windfall for wealthy people. There's a common narrative of your struggling barista with a 100k in student loans but the reality is that most loans are held by doctors, lawyers, and other high earning professionals. The barista would come out ahead as well of course, but you'd be priced 100 miles outside of any major city. If this does actually happen as blanket relief then buy a boat or classic muscle car right now and sell for 10x what you bought it for to some 40 year old doctor that no longer has to pay 10k a month in loans

I can't imagine this plan would actually go forward with a salary cap, probably 75k with a phase out above that

My position is that RETROACTIVE loan forgiveness is overall an unhelpful, unaffordable idea that primarily benefits the wealthy(no, not mostly the "middle class"). Most student loan debt is from grad school. These are not middle class people for the most part.

I would agree to forgiveness if it was isolated to household incomes of less than 70 or 80K. Those are the people that are being crushed by it for life. No free money for the rich. Terrible idea.

I would also agree to some way of lowering debt going forward. Universities would need to markedly reduce costs, and government could subsidize more. If we could bring costs down to what it was in the early 2000s or 1990s that would be a win. But it would need to be a combo of decreased cost and increased subsidy.

Worth watching if you haven’t seen it. https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0

I went to a community college and then a mid-level state school. Worked full time plus and went to school part time. I just paid the tuition bill when it arrived in the mail. Never took out a student loan. 7 years to get my degree.

I'm all for Ivy Leaguers getting their loans paid off. If Elizabeth Warren says it's the right thing to do I believe her. She's the enlightened one. I'm the inbred, redneck, reactionary deplorable.

CarbonFiberJoe wrote:

1. What fraction of the loan forgiveness will be paid by colleges, being the ones who overcharged for a defective product?

2. I paid off my remaining student loan debts a few months ago (total of about $60K). How much of that will I be refunded?

#1 if only accountability were that easy. if only we could put a cap on how much college costs or the schools could be trusted enough to charge a rational amount of money. but we can't so tons of people have a ridiculous amount of student debt. if we have the money to give tax breaks to billionaires, surely we have the money to wipe federal student loan debt. let working people have some income to pump into the economy.

#2 imagine being the kind of person that thinks like this? so you paid off your debt -- why do you want everyone else to be miserable? the majority of people with student loan debt have pennies compared to the super rich. but loan debt could mean living comfortably versus paycheck to paycheck. I get it --you had to suffer through loan payments. That doesn't erase how much of a problem it is for everyone else.

I had ~ $100k or loan debt & am nearly paid back. I worked my tail off & secured good jobs. I'm not about to go all bootstraps on someone else with debt. If someone else doesn't have to go through that & can buy a house, or whatever, then good. There really isn't a good argument against wiping student loan debt. There are only selfish ones for preserving something so horrible.

Youth aren't taking out loans by mistake. They most likely have bad parents who never educated them about finances. And even good parenting isn't going to fix the fact that kids make stupid decisions for stupid reasons. Literally no kids should be smoking or drinking but that's not reality. Paying off these loans is like paying for an alcoholics booze. It'd be better to just cap the loans off at 3% or something and require payments to apply directly to principal if you're going to "help" the situation

The selfish people are the ones who want their loans forgiven. We have provided many examples but you apparently don't want to acknowledge them. Most student loan debt is held by upper middle class white people. And most is held by people who have the means to pay it off. So why would you want to pay off the student loan debt for one guy while his neighbor paid his off. The guy with the debt may have $100k in the stock market or may own a house or may have an expensive car while the guy who paid his off does not have those things. I have 3 kids in college that I am paying for. If those loans would have been forgiven instead, I could have then gifted the $50k to each of them for a nice down payment on a house. But they will have no debt when they graduate. What about all of the people who chose not to attend college because they did not want to take on debt? You can't reward the people who made the bad decisions. This is worse than socialism. I would be okay with gifting everyone $50k instead of the people who are least deserving.

Does it matter if the debt forgiveness benefits middle class white people if the fact there's no debt means less privileged groups are encouraged to go? And if we abolished loans next year, people who went last year would complain too.

We always need a cut-off so forgive the debt of people with the largest debt outstanding first and work your way down - is that not the fairest system for everyone?

No. The largest debt is held by doctors and lawyers, some of who are earning $250k per year and could pay it off tomorrow. You want to forgive their debt so that they can buy a $3M house instead of a $2M house? Why do you think student loan debt should be forgiven over other debt. Some people tackled that debt first while others tackled other debt. I paud off my house while my neighbor paid off his student loan debt. forgive my debt and I now own a house and have no debt while my neighbor still has a large mortgage. All money is green. You monthly budget does not know the difference between the $1k going to student loans or a car payment or a mortgage payment or credit cards.

A bunch of nonsense. I told you that you didn’t really want to help anyone. You just use one in-need population as an excuse to not help another in-need population. Classic “pick yourself up by your bootstraps like I did” guy. I bet your kids who went to college without taking on any loans will think they had it really tough too. Truly sad.