
Bernie Sanders to unveil plan to cancel all $1.6T of student loan debt - xivzgrev
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/06/23/politics/bernie-sanders-student-loan-debt-cancellation/index.html
======
rayiner
This is welfare for upper middle class people.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/opinion/student-debt-
forg...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/opinion/student-debt-forgiveness-
college-democrats.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage)

> “Education debt,” as Sandy Baum and Victoria Lee of the Urban Institute have
> written, “is disproportionately concentrated among the well-off.” The
> highest-earning quarter of the population holds more than a third of all
> student debt, while the lowest-earning quarter holds only 12 percent,
> according to Baum and Lee.

Less than 40% of those 18-29 have student loan debt:
[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/24/5-facts-
abo...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/24/5-facts-about-
student-loans). Almost by definition, these are disproportionately the folks
who were privileged enough to go to college to begin with. Moreover, the total
debt is skewed towards the people with the highest income potential. The
median debt for someone who doesn't attain a college degree is $10,000. Versus
$45,000 for someone who attains a post-graduate degree.

The existing system we have is fine. Obama's PAY-E caps student loan payments
at 10% of income. That means the people who end up with good jobs end up
subsidizing everyone else. (The government kicks some money in too, but PAYE
will only cost $180 billion over 10 years, instead of more than then times
that in one shot.) If we need to fix the loopholes in that, let's do it. But
under the current system, I as a private practice lawyer pay thousands of
dollars a month to the government. Under Bernie's plan, I'd get a small
mortgage worth of a windfall.

If we're going to raise taxes $2.2 trillion, it's criminal to not spend it on
the people who need that money the most.

~~~
andonisus
This plan cancels all student loan debt; It does not matter what percentage of
income-earners hold the debt. God forbid something nice happen for the middle
class. It's really tiring to have scraped by, worked hard to get where I am,
and be told I'm JUST privileged (white, male, income) enough to not qualify
for any sort of government assistance.

~~~
onetimemanytime
Why just student debt though? People have a right to complain. Someone has no
student debt but credit card debt.

~~~
chrshawkes
What is so baffling is that much of that debt was accrued as basic living
expenses with extremely low interest rates, where the poor have to rely on 20%
interest cards, but no bailout?

~~~
andonisus
Why does it have to be a competition of loss? The student loan issue is
something that should be addressed in and of itself. The constant whatabout-
ism when it comes to the less privileged/wealthy (and especially when it comes
to being a white male versus a PoC) is exactly what I am complaining about. It
feels as if the middle class is constantly being told that our problems don't
matter because we have just enough to do OK for ourselves.

~~~
collidge
If the government sent everyone a check for $20k, this would be more fair
regarding your concerns and the concerns of those of us who are against
forgiving student debt for the reasons in this thread.

It's not about a competition of loss; you're correct. But it's simply an
expensive and unfair plan to forgive the debt of those who have it, without
regarding why they have it. Either we take a more refined plan about how we
forgive student debt, or we simplify even further and just give stimulus
checks to everyone without _any_ conditions.

------
aristophenes
Just imagine if that amount of money was spent on updated infrastructure.
Effective country wide mass transit, better ports and airports. And the money
spent would flow right into the economy and circulate over and over, would
push construction companies and techniques forward.

Or towards clean energy generation, storage, and use. How fast would oil and
coal be completely replaced? And again, money pumped into the economy to do
so.

Or scientific research, space projects, could make large leaps, and again,
that money flows back into the economy and multiplies.

Instead we want to make it so the people who hustled through college, picked a
cheaper school, worked on the side, paid down their debt if they got any as
soon as possible, that those people get the same outcome as someone who got a
huge loan and played video games and got drunk every weekend, and spent
$200,000 on a degree that only gets you a $50,000/year job?

~~~
overthemoon
Incredible how people like you consistently think high student loan debt is
exclusively due to immoral choices.

~~~
collidge
No one once in this topic has said "exclusively due to immoral choices".

~~~
overthemoon
You framed it as people who don't deserve a break--for reasons related to
values like prudence and thrift--getting a break anyway. Fine. If some people
did act virtuously but are still in tons of debt, in what way do they not
deserve a break? Why bring up the Goofus and Gallant scenario at all? The
question isn't whether people deserve loan forgiveness, it's a question of
what's good for society as a whole.

~~~
collidge
"You framed it as people who don't deserve a break".

I'm quite sure you can't find a quote where I did this.

But anyway, you're focusing on this from a different point of view from the
people you're arguing against. It's important to take note that there are (at
least) 3 groups of people with interest in this conversation: people who've
paid off their debt, people who have not paid off their debt because they've
been unable to, and people who've not paid off their debt because they did not
want to.

Those who've paid their debt are pointing out that it's unfair to
retroactively support those who did not make the same frugal choices. (This is
sort of what you're arguing against)

Those who are in debt because they are hard up for reasons beyond their
control are arguing for paying off debt for anyone who has it.

I understand your interest at stake in saying we should forgive the debt. But
you're being disingenuous if you ignore the point of the first group of
people.

Instead of hashing out what's fair, let's give tax progressively and give a
stimulus to everyone. This has the same benefit to those in debt, but avoids
both the unfairness we're talking about and requires less government expense
in paying accountants to determine who should get the benefit (because
everyone gets it automatically).

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

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

How about a federal loan structure? with very minimal interest?

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.

~~~
its_the_future
The plan is part of a more comprehensive "college for all" program that
Sanders has already released in pieces and includes free tuition at all four-
year public colleges and universities, as well as community colleges. The
broader proposal also includes subsidies to reduce the cost of tuition and
fees for low income students at private colleges that historically serve
underrepresented communities. "We will make a full and complete education a
human right in America, to which all of our people are entitled," Sanders said
on Monday. "This means making public colleges, universities and HBCUs tuition-
free and debt-free by tripling the work study program, expanding Pell grants
and other financial incentives."

------
GhostVII
This seems like it would only make the student loan situation worse over time.
Tuition is inflated because student loans are easy to get, so students are not
very price-sensitive and are willing to go to expensive schools over much
cheaper options. Forgiving student loan debt helps current students, but just
encourages future students to accept even more debt with the hope that it will
be forgiven.

We should be encouraging students to go to cheaper schools (state schools are
far cheaper that out of state, and out of state schools are still cheaper than
private schools), and bringing in legislation which reduces tuition. The US
could bring in legislation to lower tuition at public schools (they are doing
this in Ontario right now, which has a similar system), although this might
have to be a per-state issue rather than national issue.

~~~
its_the_future
The plan is part of a more comprehensive "college for all" program that
Sanders has already released in pieces and includes free tuition at all four-
year public colleges and universities, as well as community colleges. The
broader proposal also includes subsidies to reduce the cost of tuition and
fees for low income students at private colleges that historically serve
underrepresented communities.

"We will make a full and complete education a human right in America, to which
all of our people are entitled," Sanders said on Monday. "This means making
public colleges, universities and HBCUs tuition-free and debt-free by tripling
the work study program, expanding Pell grants and other financial incentives."

------
collidge
I get helping those who are legitimately low income. But this is much broader
than that.

Please explain how this is not rewarding those who chose to spend their money
on luxuries instead of paying their debt. What about those of us who paid off
our debt by living frugally?

As someone in favor of universal health care, subsidizing college, etc, I'm
still against this particular policy decision. It's badly-thought-out populist
candy.

~~~
overthemoon
What ABOUT you? Is your objection that something good is happening to someone
suffering under student loan debt? What is the disconnect? "I suffered so they
should suffer, too" is not a meaningful objection. Freedom that only affects
some and doesn't somehow compensate people who are already free is still
freedom.

Moreover the insinuation that the only people in student loan debt are
irresponsible is nonsense.

It doesn't make right everyone who lost lifetime income to student loans. It
doesn't bring people to life who died in car accidents, and it doesn't give me
money back that I spent on a comparatively slow computer 10 years ago. It's
still good.

~~~
collidge
"Moreover the insinuation that the only people in student loan debt are
irresponsible is nonsense."

This isn't what I said. If you want to twist other people's words, I can do
that too: "There are unfair things in life therefore we should not put any
effort into trying to make our own policies fair".

------
xivzgrev
“Sanders will also release a detailed roadmap -- centered on new taxes on Wall
Street -- to raise the $2.2 trillion dollars necessary to pay for this program
and his other college funding plans. It will include a 0.5% tax on stock
trades (or 50 cents for every $100 worth of stock), a 0.1% fee on bonds, and a
0.005% fee on derivatives. Sanders believes that could raise more than $2.4
trillion dollars over the next ten years.”

Sure hope “stock trades” doesn’t include retirement contributions or
rollovers. I just rolled over 90k - that would’ve cost me $900 (sell, then
buy).

~~~
solotronics
Today we have hyper globalized financial systems and if a country implements
taxes like this the big players just move their money elsewhere. This only
ends up hurting middle class folks who are playing by the books. I think it
would make much more sense to have a very simple tax system (a few percent on
every capital gain or income, wether corporate or personal) and get rid of
every other complexity and loophole. If America had one of the lowest
corporate tax rates many companies would locate headquarters here and bring
that few percent of billions of dollar we wouldn't have otherwise.

I also think we could create a special administrative and economic zone
(without minimum wage) in the first 50 miles of southern border and allow
anyone to come work there from all over the world. This would create a pathway
for people to come here legally and have civic and language classes to help
integrate. We could pick the best and brightest from this zone for citizenship
which I think is a more fair system. Before you dismiss this idea as colonial
consider that this area would have the same human rights and laws as the rest
of the US just with low wages, this would be better working conditions than
most places on earth with similar wages while also providing a defined channel
to gain US citizenship.

~~~
ru999gol
Its sort of amazing that anyone can still openly advocate that raising taxes
on the rich "only ends up hurting middle class" or for "no minimum wage"
slavery, without getting the shit kicked out of them. The really crazy thing
is they think they are good people, not at all rotten and viscous as they
truly are. The cliff between rich and poor is ever more increasing, and you
think giving the rich more is going to stop this, you deserve whatever is
coming to you when the poor have reached their limit and come knocking on your
door.

Maybe at least you will realize, that the poor that is going to kick your head
in, is not reading Hacker News.

~~~
dang
Would you please stop posting ideological and political battle comments to HN?
It's not what this site is for.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
seneca
This is a slap in the face to anyone who made prudent financial decisions to
get themselves through college without debt, and even more so to those who
recognized they couldn't afford it and didn't go. Now they get to fund a bail
out for the managerial class they couldn't afford to join and spend the rest
of their life working for.

Let's see a plan to fix the system for everyone, not populist handouts for
people who are already ahead.

This is also fixing the wrong problem. It removes the pain that generates
pressure for real reform. Without addressing the ridiculous costs, this just
props up the problem.

------
exabrial
So, in summary, incentivize colleges to create even more worthles or
overpriced degrees and education programs to vacuum free money from the
federal government up.

------
gopher2
How about everyone gets free money, and the student loan holders can use it to
pay off their degrees?

------
pickle-wizard
I personally am not a fan of canceling student loan debt. However what I am a
fan of is lowering the interest rate to nearly 0.

I still have some of my student loans left and most of them at at 1.8%.
However I have some friends who went to college after me and theirs are at
nearly 7%. That just doesn't seem fair.

~~~
Areading314
This is spot on. The interest paid to the government can be thought of as a
tax whereas the principal is what was spent on the education.

------
grzm
Main discussion (over 200 comments):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20260014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20260014)

------
benj111
So what about the moral hazard in this.

This doesn't seem to solve anything for prospective students, except to
suggest they too may get their debt cleared, so load em up?

Surely you should be looking at future rules, then retroactively applying them
if appropriate, rather than bailing out a cohort.

~~~
jcriddle4
Yes college is like crack cocaine. The lives I have seen wrecked by it is
amazing. Just the other day a good friend of mine was talking about getting
his hundredth PHD. He was looking into possibly Quantum Mechanics next. Such a
powerfully addiction. We need to make sure education is incredibly expensive
if we want to keep our young kids safe from it. /S/S/S

~~~
benj111
How does that relate to my comment?

------
tictoc
What about the people who dodged paying student loans? What about the people
who didn't have the opportunity to go to college because of growing up in
abject poverty? These people had a choice to not do the research and take on
massive loans.

------
joshypants
Any time there's a proposal like this, it's disappointing to see the
conversation gravitate towards tit-for-tat zero-sum appeals to fairness,
instead of asking: how can we spend money in ways that will _create_ wealth
and other less tangible benefits for society? Making education accessible to
everyone is one of the best things we can do.

------
RickJWagner
"It's a regressive giveaway that primarily benefits upper middle class people
who attended elite four year colleges"

Seems about right. For those that don't get accepted to the expensive
colleges, it's a lifetime of higher taxes to fund their upwardly mobile peer's
lifestyle.

------
ykevinator
Finally, a clear idiot proof, transparent policy proposal. I love it.

------
anm89
I can't find this mentioned, is this only federal loans held by the government
or would this involve forgiving privately held debts.

The first seems reasonable. The second seems terrifying.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
"Forgiving privately held debts" sounds an awful lot like "taking (stealing)
from the lender". That probably would not pass a Supreme Court review. (No
taking without just compensation.)

~~~
anm89
I would entirely agree but I'm not sure the average Bernie, Cortez, or Warren
supporter would.

I have definitely heard people advocate for a total jubilee on student loan
debt.

I do agree that the current Supreme Court probably wouldn't let it happen.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Well, in fairness, Bernie is not responsible for everything every one of his
supporters say. (He _is_ responsible for making it clear when what he means is
different from what his supporters think.)

------
lostmymind66
This will not fix the problem with colleges pumping out useless degrees. They
got their money up-front, don't have any consequences, and the taxpayers get
to foot the bill.

Why not fix the root of the problem? This solution will only serve to enrich
the universities and not get them to change their behavior.

~~~
yifanl
What policy change that could be implemented would do anything about the
societal belief of college = job?

Even something as extreme as outlawing job listings from listing college
degrees as a requirement probably wouldn't do it. It'd just become a "soft"
requirement.

~~~
lostmymind66
"What policy change that could be implemented would do anything about the
societal belief of college = job?"

We stop federally subsidizing student loans. This will reduce the overall cost
of universities, because they won't be relying on instant government money and
the universities will be responsible if the student defaults.

It will be in their best interest to push out students that actually succeed
and have a chance at paying the money back.

------
buboard
How is this not another $1.6T bank bailout?

