
Sanders to propose canceling entire $1.6T in US student loan debt - spking
https://m.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/Sanders-to-propose-canceling-entire-1-6-trillion-14032094.php
======
kenneth
This is one of the most ridiculous things I've heard suggested yet. It goes
against every value of fairness we hold.

Bernie essentially wants to forcibly take money from everyone who was
financially responsible enough to save and pay off their loans early, or who
like me worked their asses off through college to be able to graduate without
debt, and use it to pay those who were irresponsible enough to dig themselves
into a massive debt hole.

I have little empathy for people with student or credit card debt. You took a
deal knowing the terms full well, you have no right to complain that you owe
the money you already spent but never earned.

~~~
pytester
>Bernie essentially wants to forcibly take money from everyone who was
financially responsible

"Financially responsible" has become a euphemism for "rich and assumed to be
responsible".

I know a bunch of people who are not particularly responsible with their money
(splurging) but they are beneficiaries of a lot of unearned income (interest,
dividends, rent) and I have yet to hear a coherent argument for why this
unearned income shouldn't be taken away and used to fund the kind of education
that improves the overall wellbeing of society.

This is the point where somebody tells me that those people don't have enough
money to fund this kind of thing (bullshit), or that Bernie won't target them
he'll target you (bullshit) or that if you tax them they'll just run away to
Panama (there was a study that demonstrated that when their taxes are jacked
up they didn't even run away from New York to New Jersey).

~~~
cloakandswagger
It's much easier to rob someone when you convince yourself that they didn't
actually earn what they have.

This us vs them reductionism is seen in the early days of any communist system
(the mass killings come a bit later)

~~~
aaomidi
Ah yes, communism.

This isn't us vs them - this is us vs... us. Everyone should want to allow
people to access education.

~~~
cloakandswagger
>I know a bunch of people who are not particularly responsible with _their_
money (splurging) but _they_ are beneficiaries of a lot of unearned income
(interest, dividends, rent) and I have yet to hear a coherent argument for why
this _unearned income shouldn 't be taken away_ and used to fund the kind of
education that improves the overall wellbeing of society. This is the point
where somebody tells me that _those people_ don't have enough money to fund
this kind of thing (bullshit), or that Bernie won't target _them_ he'll target
_you_ (bullshit) or that if _you_ tax _them_ _they 'll_ just run away to
Panama (there was a study that demonstrated that when their taxes are jacked
up _they_ didn't even run away from New York to New Jersey).

Emphasis _mine_

~~~
burfog
Calling the income "unearned" doesn't make it unearned. It doesn't make people
any less deserving of keeping what rightfully belongs to them.

At some point in the past, a person (possibly an ancestor) took risks to
create wealth. Part of the motivation is to later have an easy retirement or
to support one's children. You'd kill that motivation, causing people to avoid
the risks which would no longer create wealth, and thus prevent things like
start-ups.

------
Simulacra
This makes me very angry. I went to college twice, both times I got a federal
loan, and both times, through blood sweat and tears, I paid it off myself. Why
should I be penalized for choosing a major that pays, getting a job, and
knuckling down to pay these loans? People must be held accountable for their
poor decisions, even if it is $100,000 in student loans to get an
interdisciplinary degree in religious and women's studies [1]

I also take offense to general tone of liberal policy these days of "giving"
something away, or making something "free." Someone has to pay for it. There's
a lot to be said and agreed upon for the common good, but there's more to be
said for just paying your own damn bills and stop waiting for someone else to
rescue you.

[1]. [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-
loans/...](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-
loans/29money.html)

~~~
joshypants
You should get a check too. Everyone who paid student loans in the last ~20
years should get some amount of money. We could afford it for less than DOD
accounting fraud.

~~~
treis
Why not just a straight refund for all tuition payments in the last 20 years?

~~~
Simulacra
or 40

~~~
joshypants
College has gotten a lot more expensive lately. Anecdotally, after the
recession my in state tuition doubled because of less funding from the state.

I agree it's a great question of what should be done but I'm mostly happy to
reframe Sanders' proposal as a minimum.

Further reading - I'm a big fan of the schedule idea:
[https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/04/23/providing-
re...](https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/04/23/providing-reparations-
for-victims-of-unfree-college/)

~~~
djrogers
> Anecdotally, after the recession my in state tuition doubled because of less
> funding from the state

No, your state tuition doubled because of rampant spending increases
underwitten by a limiless supply of student loans. Your state may have reduced
funding somewhat, but that's not the primary cause of higher tuition.

Ask your state school system what it's employee:professor:student ratio is now
vs 10 years ago. How many new buildings have been built in the past 10 years?
And how do the construction costs compare to those built 20 years ago?

------
aaomidi
You design a system for the citizens you're representing. Not for citizens you
ideally want to be representing.

Are these debts using people's ignorance about financial terms to make money?
AKA Are they predatory? - If so then that's a bad thing.

You might not care - but I care about the well being for people I'm sharing a
society with. I don't want people taken advantage of. I don't want education
to have capital associated with it. I want people to be able to get education
without "oh will i be able to pay off the loans for this education."

So you might think you did a good job working your ass off affording
education. People like Sanders and I think that getting a quality education
should be completely unrelated to "working your ass off."

I've also worked my ass off to afford my education. I still think it's a bad
system and I don't care if my taxes are rerouted from killing people in
foreign countries to helping my society get stronger and better.

~~~
m3kw9
Is a case by case thing, some maybe predatory, some ignorant, but some are
not. You can’t just say everyone gets off Some bad apples are there

~~~
aaomidi
Right, but who cares!

Why do we want to preserve this system that doesn't allow everyone to have a
fair chance of progressing? Why does education need to be artificially
limited?

It's not difficult to imagine a world where education isn't limited by the
amount of money in someone's bank. Think about all the possibilities if
everyone can go learn whatever their heart desires without worrying about
paying something back?

~~~
turtleofdeath
> Think about all the possibilities if everyone can go learn whatever their
> heart desires without worrying about paying something back?

They can do that online and or in a library. Once you start paying someone to
teach them, it starts costing money and that money has to come from somewhere.

------
partiallypro
Bernie and Warren are currently in a race to see who can unrealistically
promise the most things to shore up the youth vote. I'm getting tired of
unrealistic proposals that are akin to political grifting. These would never
pass congress, even if Democrats controlled both chambers with super
majorities. We can't get anything done in Washington because neither party
puts forward anything realistic that can actually pass. It's tiresome. No one
is willing to compromise and everyone puts up nonstarters.

~~~
untog
The Affordable Care Act was absolutely a compromise. It's not difficult to
imagine a compromise being reached on a pledge like this in a similar fashion.
It's primary season after all, candidates are laying out their philosophy as
much as they're laying out actual legislation.

~~~
partiallypro
How are this and ACA even remotely similar? This proposal doesn't even address
the cause of high costs of education. So, we pay it all off and then wait for
the next bubble. That's like implementing TARP in 2008/2009 to buy up bad
banking assets and doing nothing else to prevent it from happening again.

~~~
untog
I didn't say they were similar, I said that the ACA is an example of
legislation that was passed through compromise.

~~~
partiallypro
The ACA was only voted for by one party hardly a compromise, and because of
that it had been crippled on the state level where it absolutely needed
support. So, still a poor example.

~~~
javagram
The ACA wasn’t a compromise between parties , it was a compromise between the
conservative and progressive wings of the Democratic Party - Senator Joe
Lieberman’s (a former Democrat who had run and won as an independent) vote was
crucial to passing the act and also to the removal of the public option from
the bill.

~~~
partiallypro
...and it doesn't really work because it wasn't a compromise between
parties...since the GOP controls most state governments, they have stripped
out the Medicaid portions. So...it is largely a failure in many regards. If
there had been real party to party compromise, the bill might have actually
helped cut costs. Instead it was just something to pass quickly to notch as an
accomplishment. The Democrats aren't the only ones who have done that...the
GOP is equally guilty. It's time to start compromising across party lines, and
things like what Warren and Bernie have put forward do the polar opposite.

~~~
javagram
Medicaid has been expanded in the places where the vast majority of Americans
live. Even in some red states.

Issues with the ACA are hardly limited to the Medicaid expansion. And labeling
it as “something to pass quickly” does a disservice to the negotiation
involved in the bill and how it almost didn’t become law in the end when the
democrats lost their 60 seat majority in the middle of final negotiations and
passing.

Not sure how anything new gets passed though. Even if warren or Bernie win,
it’s unlikely they get 60 senate seats.

------
lettergram
Can someone else propose a bill to bar senators who are running for president
from proposing bills?

I find this disgraceful. Most of these loans were taken by students and _co-
signed by parents / guardians_. Meaning everyone knew what they were getting
into. Presumably, because the parents / guardians are on the line if the
students can pay their debt, they would / are providing guidance (i.e.
thinking of the long-term impact).

Buying votes is the hallmark of American politics, usually with political
favors; but this is a tad more than normal.

I'll take my $70k in loans over selling my soul.

------
pdq
Moral Hazard.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard)

Who would pay toward their current student bill, if there were any chance of
this passing? And what is the incentive for anyone to choose a cheaper public
school, rather than a more expensive private one?

~~~
tim58
> And what is the incentive for anyone to choose a cheaper public school,
> rather than an expensive private one?

From the article

> as part of a package that also would make public universities, community
> colleges and trade schools tuition-free.

There would be no incentive to pick a cheaper school because all schools would
have the same price -- $0.00. Students should go to the best school they can
get into. Schools should enroll the best students they can attract. It's
better for both parties.

~~~
rhino369
Most schools are private.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Huh? In what country? In the USA, most schools are public, if we go by
students that attend public vs private universities and colleges.

------
creddit
Interesting strategy. Clearly hoping to effectively buy the votes of those
with debt but the flip side is he dramatically alienates himself from anyone
even approaching the "fiscally conservative" portion of the political
spectrum. I guess his gamble is that he had already lost all those potential
voters. Not sure it's a winning strategy.

I would not have voted for Bernie before this, but it further reaffirms my
fears of his election. The fears are probably largely unfounded as he would be
likely blocked by the legislature but who knows.

~~~
untog
I don't know why anyone even touching the "fiscally conservative" end of the
spectrum would even consider Sanders. Anyone alienated by this proposal was
alienated long ago, so I really don't think this is going to have a big impact
on him.

~~~
ajross
I don't know why anyone even pretends there is a "fiscally conservative" end
of the spectrum. A few writers at the WSJ and a banker or three does not a
demographic make.

No one cares about that stuff. No one. Everyone wants the government to spend
on their priorities. Everyone thinks spending on other people's priorities is
wasteful and unsustainable.

Everyone is wrong. The galaxy brain end of things is the realization that,
yes, US government debt is almost literally free money in every sense of the
word and we're absolutely bonkers not to be spending it on objectively useful
junk like education.

~~~
creddit
> I don't know why anyone even pretends there is a "fiscally conservative" end
> of the spectrum. A few writers at the WSJ and a banker or three does not a
> demographic make.

How does a perspective like that gel with a state like Texas?

[https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/per-capita-
state-s...](https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/per-capita-state-
spending/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Per%20Capita%20State%20Spending%22,%22sort%22:%22desc%22%7D)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita)

> The galaxy brain end of things is the realization that, yes, US government
> debt is almost literally free money in every sense of the word

How does a perspective like this gel with any of the numerous hyperinflation
states that have tried this?

~~~
ajross
> How does a perspective like this gel with any of the numerous hyperinflation
> states that have tried this?

None of them were issuing US debt. Have you ever recommended a home purchase
as an investment? US bonds are _cheaper_ than mortgage interest.

~~~
creddit
So because mortgage interest > US bond interest, US gov debt is free money?
The debt still needs to be repaid and that repayment has to either come from
inflation or from taxes. Neither of those are "free". You can't treat it like
it is and any perspective taken that it is free is one that clearly doesn't
take into account the realities of other economies. It might be relatively low
cost money on the margin, but you're just borrowing from future citizens or
planning to default.

Unless you believe the US government has absurd returns on its spending which
of course doesn't gel with US GDP growth in relation to US spending growth...

~~~
ajross
> Unless you believe the US government has absurd returns on its spending
> which of course doesn't gel with US GDP growth in relation to US spending
> growth...

Citation needed. In fact US growth relative to revenue has been consistently
and considerably higher than the rest of the industrialized world for
effectively all of the past century.

But it doesn't really matter, because you're making a tribal point and not an
economic one. A year ago, I'm quite certain you were _nowhere to be found_
when the government decided to spend $1T of that same free money and hand it
to wealthy taxpayers. But try to do that same thing for recent students and
you all lose your fucking minds? Yeah. Tribal.

I said it up thread: no one cares about this stuff. _You_ don't care about
this stuff. You just don't want the government spending its free money on the
wrong people.

~~~
chrisco255
AJ, letting people keep the money they earn can cause the economy to expand.
It happened in the 80s, 90s, 00s, and it's happening now. Any engineer worth
their salt should know that every choice comes with trade-offs. And finding
the optimal mix of taxation, regulation, and free market capitalism is a
difficult balancing act. If the economy stops growing, our huge debt becomes a
huge problem. The only reason money is cheap is because the U.S. has a track
record of growth. If that growth stops due to excessive regulation or
taxation...money gets more expensive and long-term tax rolls go
down...meanwhile debt stays static and the cost of servicing that debt
consumes a higher portion of Federal tax revenues. Millions of people care
about this stuff. Your arm chair observation proves nothing, says nothing.

There's no such thing as free money. It's beyond ignorant to say so.

~~~
ajross
Citation. Needed.

That's just wrong. There's no meaningful economics behind the magic fairy dust
notion that tax cuts cause growth. In fact where actual research has been
done, the effect more often shows the opposite. Tax cuts go disproportionately
into illiquid investment holdings, while spending end up in consumer pockets.
Look. It. Up. Or, y'know, keep parroting what you hear on "business news" and
FOX.

~~~
creddit
Your level of discourse is not conducive to your points. You rant to get
citations from others without providing any of your own (just telling people
to look it up) and then you make unfounded assumptions about the behavior of
those you converse with. If you want to get your point across, you’re rhetoric
does you no favors.

Your economic arguments have so far been “debt is free and there’s no
multiplier effect on tax cuts” which seems dumbfounding to anyone who studied
economics. Tax cuts that aren’t associated with federal spending decreases are
obviously going to increase spending. Also, if you really believe the US debt
is free money, why have any taxes at all? Your arguments are incoherent,
unspecified and full of ad hominema.

------
CaliforniaKarl
>...$1.6 trillion of student debt held in the United States...

According to [https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student-
loans/student-...](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student-
loans/student-loan-debt/), $119.31 billion of the debt is private.

>Sanders is proposing to pay for these plans with a tax on Wall Street his
campaign says will raise more than $2 trillion over 10 years, though some tax
experts give lower revenue estimates.

So, a portion of the tax would go right back to the banks financing that
private student loan debt. Interesting!

~~~
inamberclad
How does it go back to the banks?

~~~
LanceH
It gets paid to some banks from taxes on other banks.

------
cwperkins
I understand moving the Overton window, but a plan like this just seems
infeasible and dangerous. Like drug prices, the price of higher education
should absolutely come down (or wages rise faster than the cost of higher
education).

I actually think the Department of Education's strategy is a good step forward
here. By publishing earnings data of grads by major it helps inform
prospective students of what would be a prudent major.

My hope is that with the resurgence of the space sector with private space
companies and going to Mars, that kids will have a new found interest in the
sciences and move into more technical fields.

------
booleandilemma
Right after I’ve finished paying mine off, of course. Do I (and everyone else
in my position) get money back? Or did we spend all those years cost-cutting
for nothing?

~~~
hprotagonist
"But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t
you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one
who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I
want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’"

This is a very bitter pill. But you get to choose how to swallow it.

~~~
CaliforniaKarl
I’m curious, where is that from?

~~~
scarejunba
Where else? The Bible. Jesus is trying to point out that it doesn't matter
whether you were pious all your life or came to it late. You still get to
enter the Kingdom of Heaven

~~~
hprotagonist
and the Kingdom of Heaven does not have to have anything to do with “what
happens to you when you die”.

Along with “son of man”, it’s one of the more undefined but well known phrases
from the NT.

I tend to think it’s got vastly more to do with improving the life we know
than it does with anything about “getting to go to heaven if you’re good”

~~~
RandomTisk
The parable literally starts saying "The Kingdom of heaven is like"... so you
can't really escape from that context.

~~~
hprotagonist
What I mean is that the phrase itself is not well defined. Certainly the
parable is meant to tell us something about its character, but not necessarily
its nature.

Until I was in adulthood I figured it meant “heaven”; that is not at all
clear, actually.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingship_and_kingdom_of_God#...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingship_and_kingdom_of_God#Gospels)

------
LanceH
The "privileged" are the ones attending college. Cancelling their debt -- in
practice -- would be seen as racist/classist once someone runs the actual
numbers. So there would be means testing and possibly race testing, or first
generation college student testing.

Now you have a dividing line with some people above it receiving nothing, and
a lot pro-rated in the middle. Everyone is jealous of those receiving more
than they are. The line that schools are getting more expensive because the
free-riders don't pay anything isn't going to sit well with those who failed
the means test and feel they are subsidizing.

There is a strong fracture between the two groups and suddenly we're producing
a whole new generation of Republicans.

Or nobody takes Warren and Sanders seriously when it comes time to actually
elect them outside their echo chamber and this goes nowhere.

------
betolink
Some comments here are along these lines: "emancipation is an insult to those
who worked hard to pay off their masters for their liberty" give me a break. I
paid student loans and I'll be happy that the next generation won't have to.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
This is how I see it, too. Colleges at this point are just siphoning money out
of the federal government by jacking up tuition by rates several times the
rate of inflation every year, and it doesn't take much effort to realize that
the next generation of students will have to take on insane amounts of debt to
gain even the opportunity of entry to the professional class. Even nowadays I
have a hard time believing the pseudonymous internet bootstrappers who somehow
paid for a bachelor's degree in 2012 by waiting tables between classes.

------
padseeker
I went back to grad school to get my computer science degree, I still owe more
than 35K from my bachelors and masters combined and I can say honestly this is
a terrible idea.

According to both liberal and conservative economists making higher education
completely free is an awful economic policy. We're already running a deficit.
Make it means based.

For those those making less than 100K, for teachers, social workers, working
for non-profit give those people a break. We loaned billions to financial
institutions at exceptionally low interest rates during the economic crisis,
give those same rates for college loans.

But don't just cancel all of it. That's terrible economic policy.

------
povertyworld
He's going to wipe out grad school debt too? So instead of working and being
cheap to pay off my undergrad you mean I could have been racking up fat debts
doing master's degree this whole time? Wow, can I get the last decade back?

~~~
evanriley
Let me preface this by saying I 100% don't see this happening anytime
soon...but.

Would you prefer we just keep going at this pace and hurting future students
because in the past people had to pay? Sounds like a pretty shitty future.

~~~
prewett
Making student loans dischargable by bankruptcy again would be a much better
solution. Not only does Sanders' suggestion not solve the problem, it hurts
people who did actually pay off their debt. Whereas the problem fixes itself
if bankruptcy can wipe out student loans: loaning institutions would be more
careful about loaning money. Right now they are guaranteed to get the money
back, so if you want a $100k loan to study Aboriginal Literature, sure no
problem. If they had to think about whether you could ever pay off that loan,
they might think it's a problem, and then the Department of Aboriginal
Literature might have to rethink their tuition and/or cost structure.

~~~
javagram
Almost all student loans are from the federal government now anyway, so in
reality they’d probably just keep loaning the money since the government
doesn’t care about losing it.

You’d probably have to get rid of the government-run student loan program at
the same time as making the loans dischargeable in bankruptcy to really get
something working properly, I’d think.

------
SSilver2k2
I have student loans, if next year all college students get free* tuition I'm
not going to be upset that I had to pay. I'm going to be happy that they don't
have my burden.

We as a society need to push the next generation up, not bitch that they don't
have it as hard as we do.

*paid for by our taxes.

------
atmosx
For comparison, Obama bailed out wall street in 2008 for 3.6T. Bernie is still
on the cheap.

~~~
jupiter90000
you mean this one signed by Bush?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilizati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008)

'free market economics'

~~~
atmosx
Yes, that is what I had in mind.

------
hprotagonist
Cancelling a loan, naively, is a taxable income.

What's the mechanic being proposed such that "you just 'earned' $60,000 this
quarter" doesn't trigger?

~~~
ipython
There was an exception made during the recession to exempt cancelled mortgage
debt from federal taxation, for example.

------
rajekas
I am not American though I live in the US and I don't have student debt. I
probably won't retire in the US either, which means that all the money I pay
into social security is a donation from me to you. And I grew up in
circumstances substantially more constrained than most people here who are
complaining about the unfairness of Bernie's proposal.

I don't agree with that one bit.

The US is the richest country in the history of humanity. It owes its citizens
a good life - education, health etc - no questions asked. In fact, it owes
that to the rest of the world, since so much of the wealth has been created
through the hard work of immigrants :)

If I could vote, I would pull the lever for Bernie without hesitation for
being the only candidate for the Presidency who truly understands the depth of
transformation this economy needs. An America without pain and uncertainty
will make the world's problems easier to solve.

------
siculars
Wrong problem. Make school cheaper. I'd seriously consider removing private
(and public) schools tax exempt status. Or tax them at some non zero rate
pegged to their fee curve. Tuition growing at double digit percent a year is
utterly insane.

------
m3kw9
Ok that’s very nobl, but someone else is paying that 1.6T that is owed to
lenders. Doesn’t make sense any way you cut it unless you either force someone
else to pay, force lenders to take a cut and a longer term with lower rates..
or ask the students to pay it back once they get settled. Someone is gonna pay

------
javagram
Just remove the tax penalty from [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income-
based_repayment](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income-based_repayment) and
student loans won’t hold anyone back. (You pay only up to 10-15% of your
discretionary income. After 30 years the remaining balance is forgiven, but
the IRS considers the forgiven balance income and will try to tax you on it)

Also, this should be the default payment plan instead of the 10-year repayment
which is currently the default. For some reason people don’t seem to be aware
of income-based repayment and are always talking about how their student loans
are holding them back, i’m not sure why but I’d guess like any program, the
default settings are what most people stick with.

------
human_banana
If 18 year olds aren't mature enough to enter into financial agreements, or
purchase handguns, or drink alcohol how could the possibly be mature enough to
vote? Or get married? Or join the army?

Either you're an adult at 18 or not. The 18-21 (maybe 25 for rental cars) grey
zone is bullshit.

------
jmpman
I didn’t realize how crazy a number this is until I did some math. Sanders
proposed to fund it through taxes on Wall Street. Maybe that’s a good plan,
but let’s see what it would mean if we funded it as a tax on each H1B.
Currently there are 350,000 H1B. Let’s say that their spouses work as well, so
we are up to 700,000 jobs (yes, I know the rules have changed recently) Let’s
then say that we want to pay off the $1.6T just by taxing those jobs over the
next 10 years. That comes out to $228k per H1B per year for the next 10 years.
So, taxing H1B alone isn’t going to do it. What about raising the estate tax
for the next 10 years?

~~~
what_is_this
Some of the taxes on Wall Street included stuff like a 1% tax on bonds, 0.05%
tax on derivatives

Pretty sure Sanders is also in favor of higher estate taxes. Even Clinton was

------
totaldude87
Just too many questions at this point.

what about the ones who have already paid the entirety of its loan?

Isn't this problem a derivative of problem (insert costly higher education)
here.

Shouldn't this also mean that education loan will become one of the easy way
to get into college even if you dont want to?

What about the future generation? Its good to have free education in first
place rather than giving out loans and taking it back.

India took a similar stance on Farmer's loan waivers and it neither fixed the
issue nor corrected it.

Time to learn lessons.

------
jhhh
I know we in tech see all of our coworkers, friends and acquantences with
degrees but only ~35% of US adults have a B.S. or higher. I'm not sure these
people, the ones with the BS/MS/PHD degrees and can acquire the higher
requirement jobs are the one that need to have their debts cancelled. At least
Warren's plan attempted to be more reasonable about the limitations on income,
relatively.

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tehjoker
Hopefully this just leads to free tuition in the US. People in other countries
already make fun of us and say we "buy our degrees".

~~~
thrill
Does that mean people in other places are _forced_ to buy their degrees?

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RickJWagner
People who attend college are already at a huge advantage. (And yes, we
certainly need skilled tradespeople.)

College grads do not need an even bigger edge.

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tim58
Can the US Government really "cancel" private debt (Debt a former/current
student agreed to pay a private bank?)

~~~
dqpb
Is it really private if it's backed by the government and immune to
bankruptcy?

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andrewstuart
They'd be better to redefine every individual debt as having an interest cap,
retrospectively applied.

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bradlys
I see the debt forgiveness programs similar to decriminalizing marijuana and
releasing inmates.

Yes, it's unfair that it's now decriminalized, you had to either serve partial
or full time and suffer, but you probably knew the consequences of your
actions. Maybe not fully but you had an idea.

Doing this entire debt forgiveness thing is to level the playing field. It's
to unburden the people of the past of their fiscal sentence while unlocking
the decriminalizing of college. People in the past would be pissed if they had
to keep paying their loans (serving time) if it was all free now. People who
already paid (served full) have it rough but it was a different time. You have
to make the transition somehow.

Maybe my analogy sucks but I don't see how you can get buy in otherwise.

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sxp62000
This would certainly solve the problem where smart kids go to good but
expensive schools, and then take on garbage consulting jobs so that they can
pay off their loans.

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darepublic
I believe Andrew Yang proposed something similar

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andrenth
Why isn't this called populism?

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alexandercrohde
I feel like sometimes short-term solutions can undermine long-term solutions.

If the root of the issue is skyrocketing college cost due to lack of supply
then this is going to reward all the consumers who weren't financially
responsible (i.e. majored in something unprofitable), which in turn alleviates
the market pressure on colleges to offer better value.

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King-Aaron
In this thread: "I hate this idea because __I __paid money so other people
should too! "

Note: I don't personally agree that wholesale cancellation of debts is
necessarily the right thing to do - but this is the argument I'm seeing in
this thread more than anything else.

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ImGunter
Sounds fine to me

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wtdata
Although I do think that education should be mostly free (which also means
that the university degrees will be at according to the country needs... so
there it goes most liberal arts degrees out the window), I think it's a very
bad idea to change the rules of the game ad posteriori.

We can't trust a state that just keeps changing the rules like this.

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kevmo
Sanders is a movement candidate.

People who want real change should support him

~~~
phaedryx
You should also consider if the changes he wants are the changes you want,
right?

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imnotyourkeeper
Wish I would have known this before I served 6 years in the military to get my
GI bill to go to college. Is this ridiculous to anyone else?

