Could I ask for a little clarification about your critique? I understand what his perspective is: socializing the cost is a moral hazard (people will make different decisions if they don't have to pay the cost of them). That's the perspective I assume GP has, as I feel similarly.

If what you are implying is that the eventual result of non-forgiveness is access to education only for the wealthy, I would disagree - there are other options, none of which are perfect that I'm aware. That said, I'm trying to figure out what reasoned argument you might be making with this statement which might be an exercise in futility.

The "moral hazard" argument holds very little water with me in this era. We've bailed out big banks despite the moral hazard, because it was necessary or else the consequences would have been ever worse. I think a similar argument is applicable to student loan debt, except that student debtors are a much more sympathetic and deserving beneficiary than big banks ever were.

The simple truth is that the world isn't a fair place and doing the right thing is not the same thing as doing the fair thing. Fair is "everybody gets treated equally". That just isn't how things work in the real world. Right is "to the best of our ability, we try to help people get what they need." That's something we can really aspire to. Doing the right thing.

That exactly what this is. Person A goes to school, takes out loans, diligently pays them back. Person B does the exact same thing, but gets his/her loans forgiven.

How is that fair?

It isn't. Fair would be allowing them to discharge their loans via bankruptcy and forcing the institutions that took the loans to eat most of that.

the world isn't fair and what's fair and what's right are rarely the same thing.