I'd rather just make student debt "regular" debt, i.e. dischargeable through bankruptcy. Maybe secured by the actual diploma, so you can't claim to be a graduate if you default on the debt, but you'd obviously have the education.

This changed in 2005, under GWB, and was not the worst thing he did (screwing up Afghanistan, invading Iraq, PATRIOT, TSA, ...) but was still a bad thing he did.

Australia has an interesting system, the government owns the student debt and once you earn above a certain amount it raises your tax rate slightly until the debt is paid off.

Those who can earn enough money eventually pay it off, but they're not worried about debt collectors if they're not earning any money.

People who don't ever earn enough simply don't pay it off and it's not a problem.

To prevent abuse from the universities raising costs too much, if they want to participate they have to adhere to set rates for degrees. There are a couple of universities that don't participate in the system but they're no-ones first choice

The point of a secured loan is that if you don't pay, the creditor can sell whatever is securing it and recover some or all of what is owed to them.

Taking away someone's diploma because they defaulted on their loan would just be destroying value. It's the equivalent of a bank foreclosing on your house and then burning it to the ground.

I really like the diploma idea. Its mostly reasonable to me but not sure its enough. Lots of people leave before getting degree. After first job the degree doesnt really matter that much.

I agree with capping loan amounts on future undergrad loans, but there's a whole generation of people who were encouraged into predatory tuition & loan combos under the promise the degree would get them a job which would make it easy to pay off the loan. This was (and still is, though Gen Z seems to be catching on to the scam) a systemic issue with predatory lending, and since the federal government has control over many of these predatory loans I think the political push to cancel them is entirely understandable. It may be a largely political play, but then again nearly everything the government does seems to be due to largely political reasons.

I understand the idea that these loans are predatory might be controversial, but this idea comes from the fact that going to expensive universities and paying for it with loans is pushed by high schools, parents, universities, and society alike as the sure-fire path to success. To an 18-year-old with no way to really comprehend the amount of money they're spending on education or what life looks like after university, they likely will take much of this at face value.

I distinctly remember back in school one of my friends got a loan check and said “oh wow this is 2.5k more than I need, I’m gonna buy a new (second and unneeded) laptop!”

I was so stunned I couldn’t come up with the words to say. Maybe the real issue is teaching kids the value of money.

Giving an 18 year old a bunch of money who has never lived a day of their life outside of their parent's supervision will always have its issues. Personally, I liked when my friends would get their student loan checks. It meant they were about to buy a bunch of beer and weed for all.

I find this "whole generation of people who were encouraged into predatory tuition & loan combos" thing to be incredibly unconvincing. College tuition rates started skyrocketing largely AFTER Google became a thing. There's no excuse for refusing to put in the research into wages and how long it would take to pay off these loans.

There were decades of people before internet searches were available who decided to prioritize a lack of debt over going to the absolute best school they could. The most expensive school any of my classmates went to was Tulane, and the kids who went there almost all went on GI bills. Now, across the river, where the people were more affluent... those folks definitely spent more money on their college educations. Can't say I've seen their investments reflected on their Linkedin profiles, though.

When everyone in your life is telling you to take out loans and go to the best school, I think it's understandable to not question it. There are plenty of things we take for granted and don't question, this is one of those for some people.

Not cancelling student loans is also a political play, because of the securities that depend on this unpayable debt (SLABs).

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/rmbs-to-slabs-history-r...

So right now we are prioritizing SLAB investors' profits over giving consumers more spending power. If college graduates suddenly could spend their loan payment money on other goods and services, it would be great for the economy. Loan repayments have been frozen for years now and nothing bad economically has happened.

But instead we're just protecting the rent seeking of the wealthy, which isn't really worthwhile economic activity.

Personally I think SLABs are extremely unethical, but even if you disagree with that, SLABs are unsustainable and look a lot like the subprime mortgage bubble.

I agree that there needs to be something to drive the cost of education down, but I don't know if a tuition price ceiling is the way to go. I think a good start would be punishing schools that spend elaborately on buildings, athletics and excess/overpaid administrators while also paying their grad students doing a lot of the teaching work starvation wages (or if you're UCLA, don't even pay them at all!) and neglect spending directly on education and tuition. I think an endowment cap is a great idea in this area, to force schools to lower tuition by having to spend a certain part of their endowment, rather than letting them hoard money.

Some other things that are extremely good ideas is letting the interest rate be renegotiable/refinancible. For example, why did I have to continue paying 6.5% on my loan when rates everywhere else were near zero? And also letting people discharge loans in bankruptcy like pretty much every other debt.

The bubble will burst any day now, since enrollments have been declining for years at this point. Until then, the only people benefiting are student loan servicers, useless and overpaid administrators, plutocratic athletics departments, and investment bankers, NOT students or people doing the actual educating.

You need something SLAB-like because otherwise everyone declares bankruptcy between finishing their degree and getting a first job. Congratulations you just cancelled all new student loans.

Something like dischargeable in bankruptcy after 15 years could work though.

It's the easily available financing (secured against bankruptcy) which has enabled the cost spiral; eliminating this would start to put pressure on university prices.

This would cause them to be somewhat cost conscious in certain areas; explosion of administrators, and use of capital contributions for excessive facilities.

I think it's fair to be against student loans. My point is that by being against preventing the declaring of bankruptcy of student loans you're in effect arguing for either a system where the providers are forced to give out loans that won't be repaid or a system of no student loans. You should make it clear which of the two alternatives you're actually advocating for rather than advocating for a vague policy without exploring its obvious consequences.

I agree with capping costs. However, not cancelling loans for a small sum of, say, 5-10k per person wouldn't be so bad. Just as you or I had to work through school and scrimp and save doesn't mean we should make others suffer that same way. The logic seems reminiscent of hazing to me.