I chose to become a self-taught developer, vs going to school, to avoid having student loans plague me. I weighed the options and didn't like the math.

The two paths were hard forks. It was a big decision.

I'm still "paying" the price in the form of reduced wages, surely.

Student loans weren't a great option, so I didn't take them. Why does everyone else take them, and then pass the blame and responsibility to the government?

Do you feel the same way about disaster relief, since you chose not to live that area?

I haven't had student loans since the early 2000s and I'm fine with forgiving them or at least reducing interest rates to something very low.

Yes, I do.

I lived in an active hurricane zone for most of my life, fwiw, and half my family just got screwed in 2022.

They've all variously moved away and come back. Hurricanes are a price you pay for coastal views. If I could put a beach in the landlocked state I live in now, it would probably generate incredible value.

I haven't taken a position on loan forgiveness, I've only taken a position on people blaming others for their own choices.

There's more than hurricanes, though. What of forest fires, floods, and tornadoes? You can't fault people for living within proximity of trees, rivers, and flat areas.

Okay, how about California's forest fires? They've been in the news. I'm seeing a lot of fault being passed around like "hey, we should have been doing prescribed burns for hundreds of years". We've had lots and lots of forest fires. I won't be moving my family into the California wilderness.

But I do live in a wild place, and a fire is a possibility. I pay for insurance to cover that, so I believe I'm footing my own bill as far as my own personal involvement. I wouldn't expect to receive a dime from anyone else; I never did during a hurricane.

> I wouldn't expect to receive a dime from anyone else; I never did during a hurricane.

You did, though, indirectly. Federal funds were used in lieu of state funds (your taxes). In essence, I paid for some of your cleanup. I agree that you didn't receive a personal check from the federal government, but you did benefit from their action.

Even your insurance is done with this method -- you pay an insurance premium which is far less than what would be paid out in the event that your house burned to the ground. If we're using the same insurance company, my premiums go toward that as well.

Okay, but does that come back around and lead you to believe that's the same as paying back loans that individuals took of their own volition?

I walked into your trap, you got me--my region received hurricane funds. So now we should pay Chad's student loan back even though Chad said he'd do that himself? Huh?

I'm saying that it's hypocritical to tolerate federal assistance in one case but not in another. I live in a safe area, away from forest fires, tornadoes, flooding, and hurricanes, but I'm okay with sending federal aid to other states as a cost of living in a society.

On the other hand, we have a lot of people, about 20% of borrowers, who are in default and in dire financial situations. They will likely end up homeless or destitute, which has obvious negative impact to the community. For these people, forgiveness would be life changing. If you look into the program, it wasn't going to forgive 100% of the loans, but rather a smaller amount and it was income limited.

Does it really hurt you because someone else is helped? I certainly didn't feel hurt when my tax dollars went toward your hurricane damage.

I'm saying this as someone who saved for my children's education, and started doing so years before they were born.

I never claimed to be hurt. I do not feel hurt when someone else is helped.

I still don't think that absolves people of the responsibility they put upon themselves. You're totally ignoring that part of the argument, and it's really my only argument.

And clearly we need to pick and choose where to spend our money; we can't aid every cause. That doesn't make everyone a hypocrite. I don't think you've even made a case that I am one; your alternative idea of "federal assistance to the state of Florida" doesn't really compare well to "helping individuals repay loans they directly benefit from"; it's not at all the same class of spending.

Anyway no, people who are against this very specific form of federal aid are not hypocrites if they support some other very specific form of federal aid. That is not a logical conclusion.

It is not full loan forgiveness, they would still be responsible for the remainder.

I find it funny that we tolerate fabricating billions of dollars to bail out banks with TARP, wipe out billions (trillions?) of dollars in tax revenue with the TCJA, but draw the line when it comes to actually helping the little guy.

I'm even okay with being more strict with the income requirements so that those who are truly struggling can contribute more to society. Would you accept debt forgiveness for those currently in default? Keep in mind that declaring bankruptcy is not a viable option for these people as student loans are not discharged in that case.

I don't know where I personally draw the line or whatever. I'm not okay with the bank bailouts, or the PPP forgiveness. In fact, I was so staunchly against the PPP that I chose not to take it, despite easily qualifying. I made the choice for my business to take an SBA loan that gets repaid with (low) interest.

I would consistently vote against giving tax money to private entities, given the chance (but look at our options here--we're just voting which private entities to give it to). I'm sure I'm in favor of giving private entities money in some cases, but my core belief is in personal responsibility (to a point you might find extreme), and so most of my positions can be deduced from that.

That being said, I would totally be all about a program to loan students the money with no interest. I think that solves really all the problems. It's not hard to get out from under it. It's very clear what you're signing up for, even as a young adult. It's not victimizing young people and their poor decision-making.

I'd even be totally okay forgiving the previous terms of the existing loans, and eliminating the interest. But to have other people pay for your expensive, optional education that will (hopefully) greatly benefit your life? At everyone else's expense? No, I'm never going to vote for that, no. We already give most people a very expensive primary school education, and just looking around, I would say most of that education is squandered & forgotten.

I don't vote with my heart. People struggling is not a big motivator for me in the voting box (but it certainly is in my personal life). I want them to do better, but I think the struggling is an important part of that process. It certainly was for me. I would encourage people to really dwell in that struggle; I consider it a fundamental, pivotal part of my human experience.

> That being said, I would totally be all about a program to loan students the money with no interest. I think that solves really all the problems. It's not hard to get out from under it. It's very clear what you're signing up for, even as a young adult. It's not victimizing young people and their poor decision-making.

> I'd even be totally okay forgiving the previous terms of the existing loans, and eliminating the interest.

Hey, we agree on something!

Because the math you were forced to do was caused by very specific policy decisions at the government level that radically changed how schools were publicly funded directly(lower costs to all students) to one where it is "public funding" but private risk by student loans that drove up perverse incentives to bloat school bureaucracy and lower the educational standards and raise costs. https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year

While you were in a position to make a certain career decision due to the field you wanted to go into (tech), other field require schooling. For example medicine doesn't have on the job training that allows one to be a nurse, radiology tech, respiratory tech, dr, surgeon and so forth. Do you want there to be even less of those people?

What about accountants? What about engineers? Should they just "teach themselves". The idea was that all these roles are publicly beneficial and we used to recognize that.

The "Policy" of student loans was a government decision and directly created this problem and it is what needs to change to solve it.

I don't think the people that took out degrees leading into medicine, law, accounting, or tech are the ones struggling to repay their loans.

The people struggling to repay their loans are those that have degrees with little or no economic value.

The main criticism from blue-collared voters on student loan forgiveness is the moral hazard of allowing students to take out loans for degrees with virtually no economic value. Of course, this criticism was completely ignored by the college educated elite whom refuse to entertain the idea a degree needs to have a measurable ROI. There are many other factors that play into this, but this is the crux of the matter.

Interesting that the top major of student loan holders is Nursing https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-by-major Also student loans and the funding of education and the artificial scarcity and perverse incentives that it produces is one of the direct causes of the shortage of medical professionals of all stripes in the US. https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/lawmakers-fixes-healthca... As the OP that I responded to argued, the risk of loans prevented him from pursuing a degree. That risk most definitely plays apart in prospective medical students deciding to enter the field because if they fail at any point in that journey they are directly responsible for a ungodly huge sum of money.

Also the moral hazard argument is a red herring to rage bait the blue collar segment of the population and disregards the breadth of actual majors of student loan holders. And secondly it still does nothing to address the actual government policy decision that gave rise to this problem. The policy of student loan (public and individual student risk) vs direct public funding (public and institutional risk).

How many nurses are struggling to find work and repay their loans?

The number of students enrolling in a program and the amount of debt taken out by those students doesn't matter if there is a positive return on investment and the debt is repaid.

The blue-collared voter views the moral hazard as the end of the conversation. Attempting to diminish or dismiss this as a red herring is counterproductive and doesn't accomplish what you want.

It's akin to trying to convince a friend to rob a bank with you. The friend doesn't need to hear the hifalutin plan to know it's stupid and wrong, but you're getting upset that your friend doesn't want to sit down and hear it for three hours.

Government policy, however well intentioned, created this system of incentives to encourage and boost college enrollment. Further exacerbating the problem are special intrest groups (lenders and schools) who salivated at the thought of a blank check from the feds.

I think it's silly to view this in a way that generates ill feelings for folks who pursued education. The blame falls on the government, lenders and schools. They should bear the cost of any forgiveness.

It's important to remember when talking to friends, that people are the heroes of their own stories and have a naturally biased perspective.

For my entire twenties, I could have been one of your friends complaining about the burden of my student loans. Nowadays I complain about the burden of my mortgage. But in both cases I got loans for valuable things on very reasonable terms. Just because I feel personally burdened does not mean it's a crisis for society.

It also doesn't mean nothing should ever be done. Personally I think income based repayment is a great policy. Maybe we should make that more generous for its current beneficiaries can't afford housing or families at its current level (anecdotally that wasn't the case for my friends who took advantage of the program, but it's a statistical question and I don't know the answer).

But many people seem to act like blanket forgiveness is the only workable or fair policy, and I'm just not convinced.

Here’s some research showing loan forgiveness would be a net boon on the economy

https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/rpr_2_6.pdf

Interesting!

But my criticism is not based on whether or not it would be a boon or a hindrance to the economy...

what would it take, quantitatively, to alleviate any concerns with this policy of forgiveness?

Unfortunately it would require knowledge of the future. My concern with the policy is that I believe it creates perverse incentives that encourage a continuing spiral of more costly higher education, resulting in more debt, and unpredictable periodic political battles over "one-time" forgiveness.

If you could come back from the future and say "that didn't happen, instead it gave college graduates the breathing room they needed to become politically engaged and they successfully pushed for permanent solutions to the problem of increasing costs and debt", then I'd be happy to take the L!

Or perhaps if you could find an analogous country where a one-time blanket forgiveness led to more foundational improvements to the financing of higher education in that country, that would help alleviate my concerns.

But barring that analogous country that already did this (which I don't think exists because, as you've noted, our current system is weird and different than how it works elsewhere), I don't think there's a quantitative answer to this question, because that's just not where my concern lies.

And I believe the opposite. So where is your proof? You seem to be doing a lot of pearl clutching

Ok so here's the belief I think you must be saying you believe the opposite of:

> I believe it creates perverse incentives that encourage a continuing spiral of more costly higher education, resulting in more debt, and unpredictable periodic political battles over "one-time" forgiveness.

So you believe that forgiving loans will instead create good incentives that lead to lower costs for higher education. Can you explain the mechanism by which you think that would happen? I've described how I predict people would behave, but I'm curious how you think it would shake out.

A net boon says nothing about who are the winners and losers.

If I steal 100K from you and turn it into 110K for me, that is a net gain. However, you might not find it very favorable.

Did you read the paper? It’s very much not an argument for Peter robbing Paul. Unless you’re saying investing in people’s education is robbery?

I read maybe a quarter of the paper and I guess I'm saying both.

It's robbing Peter to pay Paul. Someone with student debt gets relief and greater spending capacity and everyone else just get some more national debt and higher interest rates.

It is all upside for one party and all downside for the other. As the paper states, GDP goes up, but less than the total cost over a 10 year horizon.

Forgiving 1.4 Trillion debt is predicted "Over the 10-year forecast, the policy generates between $861 billion and $1,083 billion in real GDP.

Now GDP doesn't equal federal revenue so you are really looking at adding $1.4T debt for a fraction of $1T in returns.

To address these other concerns, checkout out podcasts like pitchfork economics or freakanonics. There’s no reason to think interest would go up. That’s just concern trolling from republicans

It says so in the paper you have been linking everywhere