This analysis breaks out share of debt by family income and student earning quintiles: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/28/who-owes-...

Their sources are also linked from that post.

Going by student earnings, the top 40% of earners owe almost 60% of the debt. Going by family incomes has about the same distribution. None of the lower three quintiles are breaking ~15% of borrowing.

This is absolutely a gift to the wealthy.

> > the top 40% of earners owe almost 60% of the debt.

> This is absolutely a gift to the wealthy.

I think you need to look up the definition of "absolute". You left out 60% of your whole.

hyperbole notwithstanding, the greatest share of the debt is owed by the minority who has the greatest ability to pay. That's the salient point. The lower earning majority has lower debt on a per-capita and aggregated basis.

This is certainly a benefit disproportionately for high earners from wealthy backgrounds.

God forbid the rich get richer.

Meanwhile, the 60% of people you didn't mention - the ones with only 40% of debt owed - are in a crisis.

You are saying that we must deny those people assistance, because we would also end up helping others who aren't in crisis, and doing so is unpalatable.

So where is the solution for the people in crisis?

God forbid that the rich be asked to pay anything at all for this incredible and unnecessary gift the people give them? What would make more sense would be targeted debt relief indexed on familial wealth, student earnings, and the institution's median outcome for the given degree program.

Is there any room for accountability, or is the indiscriminate dumping of money out of a helicopter the only solution we're allowed to consider?

Go right ahead and consider, and even promote, another option.

That's not what I have been seeing here. What I have been seeing is promotion of doing nothing at all, simply because the option being presented isn't perfect.

Those people are right.

The data does not support the idea that student debt should be a top priority for anyone trying to maximize the impact of raining dollars onto the public. I'm presenting data not for the purpose of showing that there's a better way to distribute loan relief, but to show how incredible it is to claim this is motivated by desire to give relief to needy people (and therefore given top priority)

It's decidedly not the needy who'd receive the most relief from this policy.

> It's decidedly not the needy who'd receive the most relief from this policy.

That was never the claim. Student loan forgiveness is not universal basic income, medicare, food stamps, etc. It is not designed to overcome poverty. That's a totally separate problem that needs attention.

Are you saying you expect every tax dollar to go to the poor first? Clearly you aren't basing your expectations on the status quo: We spend $700 billion on defense, and $350 billion on welfare (not including medicaid).

Just because there are more important problems to solve does not mean we should ignore this one.

Yes, because there are more important problems to solve does mean we should ignore this one. That's literally the point of prioritizing - budgeting is based on recognizing that there are limits to reality - limits to how much money we can invent or tax without destroying our economy. You seem to think that we should get this for free, but it has to come from somewhere, and we're already facing an extraordinarily expensive pandemic, plus the West seems to keep burning and getting more expensive every year, hurricane season is doing more damage every year, we have more and more places where we can't maintain infrastructure, and, well, the list could go on.

My claim is that "people have student debt" is not one of societies issues. That some people have debt may be, but the question there is, who these people are and whether their educations are performing for them, not simply that the debt exists.

Focusing on the debt is a red herring that conveniently rewards elites and others who are doing just fine. Focusing on whether universities are actually doing what they claim on the box is the real issue -- again conveniently elided by a blanket debt forgiveness program.

Focusing on the benefit to elites is a red herring that conveniently ignores the poor/middle-class, who are in need.

Focusing on universities is a closely related, but separate issue. It does need to be tackled, but that does not change the existing situation of the current victims.

My entire point is that student loan forgiveness shouldn't be discounted out-of-hand simply because it doesn't fix everything or that it benefits some people you don't want to benefit.

Plus - forgiving student loan debt, or, worse, Free College for All, would only incentivize colleges making college more expensive. College is already too expensive - it's literally ten times more expensive than it was 50 years ago, for no greater benefit. We need to find solutions that drive down the cost of things that we want people to have, not solutions to help us spend more of our money on them.

Anecdotally, all of my friends who went to college are clearing 90k a year with many over 200k once you include stock options. One friend is a published expert in their field. Out of all my friends who attended college only one didn't get into a profitable field but their degree was in civil planning and their parents are going to buy them a vineyard to run.

But again, just anecdotal.

> Do you have a citation to back this up?

Honestly, the side proposing a large action should also be ready with relevant research.