Here's the reason....

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=W04

YNWA.2013 said:

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None of this addresses the root cause of the problem, which I think is the increasingly high tuition that schools charge that is primarily taken on by individuals. Public schools should be primarily funded by the government. Your taxes pay for your local elementary, middle, and high schools. Why does this not include higher education too if it is basically mandatory to have if you want a decent paying job?

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Do you realize that the reason school costs so much is specifically because we made student loans so easy to get and so widely available without requiring that people use them towards a degree that would leve them with the ability to pay their loans back? The government backed these loans because no reasonable bank would loan you $150+k to get a gender studies degree from some east coast snob school because there is zero chance you would be able to pay it back with your post-college job as a barista at Starbucks.

The fact that the loans were being handed out like candy meant the schools could hire more and more administrators and non-faculty positions and pass the costs on to the students who would just borrow more cheap and easy money to pay for it. When a bank has to back their loans, they are going to look hard at what you are using the loan for to see if you will be likely to pay it back or if they can repossess what you are using the loan for if you don't make payments. They would have pushed back on the giant increases in tuition and fees by denying loans for unreasonable schools had they been on the hook for the full value of the loan. But because the government backed these loans, the banks were free to loan as much money as anybody wanted without any questions about the reasonableness of the tuition and fees. Go research the growth in adminstrator/staff to faculty ratios over the last 25 years or so. The cost of college has gone up so astronomically, not because it is actually that much more expensive to be able to teach, but because there was so much more money available to pay for all of the things the administrators always wanted, but could never afford before.

In a system where the banks had to be able to expect the loans to be paid back, there would have been a natural check and balance where they would stop lending to students for degrees that had no hope of leading to a decent paying job, or for universities where the tuition and fees far exceeded the value in terms of long-term job prospects. But because of government's full weight on the scales tilting the economics, none of those things happened. And this loan forgiveness without any reform in the program to correct those problems will just make the problem worse in the future. Now that the ability to print money to buy votes has been established, do you honestly think this will be a one time thing?

The correct answer would be to immediately stop government backing of the loans and let the real world come into play. Require students to have to convince a bank that their degree plan had a realistic chance of leading to a job that would allow them to pay back the loans. A real world where certain universities would be completely blacklisted from lending because their costs are so exorbitant that no normal student would be able to make enough money to pay back their loans in a reasonable timeframe after leaving school. Those things would result in trimming of useless degree plans and administrative fat, where colleges would have to justify to their prospective students AND the banks that the value of their education is actually worth what they are charging for it. What Biden just did will only make those problems worse...

Rep better figure this game out soon or we are all goin down in flames!!

agAngeldad said:

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Rep better figure this game out soon or we are all goin down in flames!!

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They already did.
PPP was $800 billion in tax free govt cash

That was better than Biden and Obama student loan programs combined.

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Which I know may not seem like a lot, but to those making under $80,000 (these include your nurses, your kids' teachers, their coaches, your physical therapists, your social workers, your reporters), it make take many years to get out of. And if you're spending so much time and money paying off these loans, you are not buying other goods and services and not investing your money which keeps you in this spiral for longer. Not to mention that this disproportionately affects minorities as they borrow an average of $25,000 more and make about $5,000 less (but we can save this discussion for another time.)

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No no no, the imaginary social contract in this country you figuratively signed by being born overrides the legal contract they literally signed.

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oh crap, you're right, I forgot.

TxTarpon said:

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agAngeldad said:

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Rep better figure this game out soon or we are all goin down in flames!!

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They already did.
PPP was $800 billion in tax free govt cash

That was better than Biden and Obama student loan programs combined.

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Don't disagree however the Dems were in control and Trump couldn't figure out how to get out of this mess. As soon as the Dems took control, all the PPP were forgiven.

PhatMack19 said:

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These are the Dem talking points that they are running with now

if you have a problem with the student loan cancellation because you already paid off your loans, just pretend its a tax cut for the rich that you also never got but mysteriously didn't complain about.

— Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) August 24, 2022

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It's not just that they are stupid , they think they are clever and have the moral high ground

These folks are greedy and jealous of everyone else's success and so everyone else has to play for these losers

I just think how many years I lived poor and sent everything I had to pay off loans fast. I took them so I paid them. I did extra jobs that weren't my first choice that paid more just to service loans. People need to pay their debts.

ApachePilot said:

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I just think how many years I lived poor and sent everything I had to pay off loans fast. I took them so I paid them. I did extra jobs that weren't my first choice that paid more just to service loans. People need to pay their debts.

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According to one poster here, the thought that you should pay back what you borrow is asinine. You should be able to just discharge the debt and call it a day.

deddog said:

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PhatMack19 said:

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These are the Dem talking points that they are running with now

if you have a problem with the student loan cancellation because you already paid off your loans, just pretend its a tax cut for the rich that you also never got but mysteriously didn't complain about.

— Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) August 24, 2022

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It's not just that they are stupid , they think they are clever and have the moral high ground

These folks are greedy and jealous of everyone else's success and so everyone else has to play for these losers

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This is exactly what it boils down to - petty envy.

In reference to the tweet above, there is a big difference between being ok with people keeping more of the money they rightfully earned vs. taking that money from them to hand it out to pay the legal debt obligations of those who are too irresponsible and amoral to pay it themselves.

RafterAg223 said:

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ApachePilot said:

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I just think how many years I lived poor and sent everything I had to pay off loans fast. I took them so I paid them. I did extra jobs that weren't my first choice that paid more just to service loans. People need to pay their debts.

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According to one poster here, the thought that you should pay back what you borrow is asinine. You should be able to just discharge the debt and call it a day.

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Economic stupidity combined with no ethics makes for a good democrat voter.

TxTarpon said:

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agAngeldad said:

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Rep better figure this game out soon or we are all goin down in flames!!

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They already did.
PPP was $800 billion in tax free govt cash

That was better than Biden and Obama student loan programs combined.

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Whataboutism at its finest. Both were/are huge mistakes

Appears OP did not get an Econ or Finance degree. You want kids to learn financial responsibility, how to think critically, and how to best plan for their future? Teach it in junior high and high school. A really good teacher will be able to steer kids down the right path and teach invaluable lessons that will stick with kids for a lifetime. College tuition rates truly define market allocation of resources to their highest valued use.

Democrat appointed by Obama to his White House Economic Team:

Pouring roughly half trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless. Doing it while going well beyond one campaign promise ($10K of student loan relief) and breaking another (all proposals paid for) is even worse.

— Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) August 24, 2022

PhatMack19 said:

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These are the Dem talking points that they are running with now

if you have a problem with the student loan cancellation because you already paid off your loans, just pretend its a tax cut for the rich that you also never got but mysteriously didn't complain about.

— Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) August 24, 2022

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only a leftist could be such an idiot to not understand that "TAX CUTS" when you get to keep more money THAT YOU EARNED

is different from taking YOUR MONEY and giving it to other people for THEIR education!!

a smart 12 year old can logically deduce this!

In all this, you never placed the blame on the schools. Why?

Many schools have millions upon millions in endowments. If so, why is their tuition so high? Just about every private school my kids looked at when they were considering colleges several years ago, regardless of school size and location, projected the annual cost at $40,000. None of them ever explained how they arrived at that number. How is it that they all magically charge about the same amount?

Additionally, schools are not held accountable, at all, for the terrible advice they give to their students. I never saw, for example, here's the average ROI the graduates from this program at this university get from their degree.

Then there are all the worthless degree programs universities offer. Idealistic teenagers are sucked in by what are effectively snake oil salesman. If you sign a kid up for a Gender Studies degree - knowing they are taking out over $100,000 in loans to get that degree - you should be treated as a criminal. You just screwed that kids life up.

Iowahawk sums up everything pretty well.

A couple of takes:

But it's not really good unless the fed loan program also produces a shit list of colleges like this with unacceptable loan default rates that are blackballed from further program participation. I'm sorry if this mean financial problems for venerable Larry's Barber College.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 25, 2022

As I said the other day, the entire raison d'etre for these places is insane state occupational licensing requirements, like Texas's 1500 minimum hours to be a barber. And... surprise! The biggest lobbyists for these requirements are the barber colleges themselves.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 25, 2022

Absolutely no reform or blackballing of further student loans to these establishments or degrees makes this all VERY ****ING STUPID and a non-starter.

Why are we doing this and not changing why we are doing this?

YNWA2013 - read, better still ,study the Constitution. Biden's act is unconstitutional. Biden, ob - puppet master, have no allegiance to our Constitution.

Any program that hands out fish instead of teaching how to fish should be axed.

Citizens need to be self sufficient so society can function. People first need to take care of themselves. Anything that reinforces dependency on government should be avoided.

"None of this addresses the root cause of the problem, which I think is the increasingly high tuition that schools charge that is primarily taken on by individuals. Public schools should be primarily funded by the government. Your taxes pay for your local elementary, middle, and high schools. Why does this not include higher education too if it is basically mandatory to have if you want a decent paying job?"



Like you said, this does not address the root of the problem.

It makes the root of the problem even worse.

Tuition will be more expensive next year bc of this.

More people with take out loans bc of this .

People will take out larger loans bc of this.

All of these things make the root of the problem worse.

Economically, back of the napkin math, say 25 million people were paying their monthly minimum payments of 200 dollars, now they don't have to, effectively giving them 200 extra dollars a month to spend. INFLATIONARY. What is the fed actively trying to suppress? Inflation. It's the number one problem facing average and poor Americans right this very second.

Morally speaking - I don't want my government handing out free money. Food stamps you say? I DO want my government helping the poorest and most helpless or disabled folks that can't do anything about it not starve. Or learn to read and write.

If they would of just put more thought into it. Something like, if you make less money than you borrowed we will forgive 10k of your student loan. So a kid that took out 40k in loans and makes 36k maybe his gets forgiven. Or hey we are gonna out a cap on the interest rates. That is much better but I still, at a fundamental level, I have a problem with it. But it would of been more politically acceptable.

Kudos to you for taking on others opinions. I did the same thing with my two democrat buddies last night.

I won't dog them for taking advantage of it.

But I will dog anyone who thinks this was "right to do" or the "smart" thing to do. There is nothing about this that makes sense societally.

The crazy part is how many people think this is okay. When with a little bit of thought you can see how bad this is for our society.

Gonna be a wild decade boys.

Forgiving dumb mistakes does nothing to fix the system and discourage the same bad policies that created the original mistakes.

Loan forgiveness is alot like the amnesty for illegals that was given in the 80's.

The argument was that by not granting amnesty the US was hurting these illegals who made the mistake of immigrating illegally.

So bleeding hearts went with amnesty.

And now the border problem is waaaay worse because the illegals know that eventually amnesty will be granted again.

One of the things that made America and western society into what it is is that when a contract is entered into it is upheld to the best of both party's abilities.

The fact that a contract is enforced whether it is "fair" or not makes both parties cautious when entering into contracts.

When contracts between governments and individuals and institutions and individuals are no longer enforced society will fall apart.

And you can see based on the numerous riots, etc that have occurred that society is falling apart because people refuse to hold others responsible for the consequences of their decisions.

What should have happened is that colleges have to pay this money back for handing out worthless degrees. If a college were the cosigner on these loans and risked losing money by having worthless education departments, you would see alot of change.

As it is, college's number one goal is to have as many students as possible to get as much of that sweet free loan money as possible regardless of whether these degrees are actually in the best interest of their students.

The colleges don't actually care about the quality of the product they are putting out there anymore and whether it is beneficial for their enrollees because there is zero accountability there. With this loan forgiveness noone is being held responsible- neither the colleges nor the students. And responsibility for this repayment is being pushed off on the working generation who are already ****ed because we are going to be supporting the boomers and their social security ponzi scheme while seeing nothing from it ourselves.

Gen Z is ****ed....wedged between a worthless millennial generation we are going to have to support because they are lazy and irresponsible and the baby boomers who voted themselves all kinds of social benefits that we will never see.

**** all of them.

I had enough student loans when in graduated to buy a decent new car (back then around 35K). I was a teacher/coach for 5 years. I had about 10k left on my loans before I went to get a masters in accounting.

A teacher/nurse/whatever can pay off their loans if they want to.

Sarge 91 said:

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YNWA.2013 said:

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Just genuinely curious on everyone's thinking/reasoning on this topic. (I know I am starting the umpteenth thread on this topic, but wanted to attempt to have a civil conversation in one place. Difficult with the Zoo, I know). Just quickly glancing through the multiple threads on here, it seems the vocal majority are against this and I am curious as to why. Apart from the "Biden is a communist" comments which have no real merit and comments that "Congress should be doing this," which is a different conversation, I am trying to find a reasonable argument as to why this is a bad thing.

It seems that many of those against this graduated many moons ago (I graduated in 2013) and went to college at a very different time when tuition wasn't what it is today. The total federal student debt has more than tripled since 2007 when it was about $500 billion to the $1.6 trillion today. In the years since graduation, including my own, states continue to cut funding towards public college and education. So what's been done to combat this? Skyrocketing tuition and mountains of student debt.

[so what is the cause of this? Subsidizing tuition with free, easy, federal dollars results in skyrocketing tuition, as the universities realize the government will pay the tab no matter how high. So, as in health insurance, a third-party payer always skews the economics and results in increased prices. Gov't created this problem, and now we are stuck holding the bag. In a more civilized era, this would characterized as theft and helicopter rides would be in order.]

I don't think many 17-18 year-olds fully understand what they are signing up for when they apply for federal student loans. [So this is predatory lending, for which the lender should be sued, prosecuted, and bankrupted. No problem. Or, if this kids do not have the capacity to understand their loan terms, the ban student loans for students under 21 years old. I am fine with that as well.] Interest alone can oftentimes be a killer. [Interest on federally backed student loans is currently less than 5%, which is lower than most home mortgage rates.] I have many peers who have never missed a payment and owe more now than they initially did when they graduated because of these interest rates and not being able to pay towards the principal. [That is because of their decision to make minimum or interest only payments. Not a smart move if you want to pay off debt. Private lenders without government backing would never permit such repayment terms.] According to the US Department of Education, about 60% of people with federal student loans owe <$40,000. Which I know may not seem like a lot, but to those making under $80,000 (these include your nurses, your kids' teachers, their coaches, your physical therapists, your social workers, your reporters), it make take many years to get out of. [Most mortgages are 30 years. Should we cancel those as well?] And if you're spending so much time and money paying off these loans, you are not buying other goods and services and not investing your money which keeps you in this spiral for longer. Not to mention that this disproportionately affects minorities as they borrow an average of $25,000 more and make about $5,000 less (but we can save this discussion for another time.)

The other sentiment that I don't quite understand is "Well, I worked hard to pay off my loans, my wife's loans, my Cousin Joe's loans." This is a wonderful achievement and should be celebrated. But the thought of these high loans has deterred many people from seeking higher education. [Good. Reduced demand for expensive, useless education is a good thing, and should result in decreased prices if the free market were allowed to work. Fed gov will never allow that, as politicians are in the pocket of the higher education behemoth.] And isn't it in the best interests of our society as whole to be as highly educated as possible? [No. It is the best interest of society to allow individuals to be the best contributor they can be in whatever field they choose. Right now, "society" is in desperate need of mechanics, electricians, plumbers, etc. We do not have a shortage of the over-educated and under-employed.] I am of the belief that the more educated we all are, the more informed decisions we can make, and the better we can all move forward.

"But how will we pay for it" and "It is just going to add to the national debt." It's funny how these arguments only come about when trying to help the lower and middle classes. [If you think loan forgiveness benefits the lower and middle class, you are woefully misinformed. This benefits the college educated only, which statistically does not make up a large percentage of the lower classes. In fact, this is the greatest transfer of wealth from the lower to the upper class in history.] None of this gets brought up when we go to war, when multibillion dollar corporations get another tax cut, etc. I don't know about you, but I would rather my taxes go toward education, veterans' benefits, etc that actually helps my fellow Americans and pushes us forward. [You are free to start a scholarship fund to benefit college students, veterans, etc. You are not free to compel others to share your compassion by taking their assets.]

None of this addresses the root cause of the problem, which I think is the increasingly high tuition that schools charge that is primarily taken on by individuals. Public schools should be primarily funded by the government. Your taxes pay for your local elementary, middle, and high schools. [See above re: market inflation due to third party payer problem.] Why does this not include higher education too if it is basically mandatory to have if you want a decent paying job? [It isn't. Entry level trade jobs pay more than entry level jobs for the over-educated and underemployed.]

Now these are just the thoughts of a thirty-something millennial and proud Aggie who was fortunate enough to have financial and emotional support from his parents, scrapped for as many scholarships as I could, went to graduate school, and still had a lot of loans to pay. I was also lucky enough to be able to move in with my parents after graduation for two and half years to live rent-free and make a sizeable dent on my loans before venturing out on my own. My wife and I are on track to pay off all student loans by the end of the year. I worked hard and am proud of how far I have come, but it should not be this difficult or this expensive to seek higher education and make a better life for yourself. I want my kids to do even better than I have done, but I would like for the deck to not be stacked against them or anyone else trying to better themselves or society.

I hope my thoughts come across as reasonable and understandable as they did in my head. I welcome any and all discussion points as I would like to understand all sides of whatever argument you may have.

Thanks & Gig'Em

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Pure domination. I look forward to OP's productive response.

You could have saved a lot of time and energy by getting a vocational education for an income stream and just go online for free adult education courses to fill out your knowledge of government, political systems, mathematics, history, economics, etc.
Even Ivy League Classic courses are online.

aggiehawg said:

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I think it would be very interesting to see that 2nd graph expressed in real inflation adjusted dollars coming from each source and not as a percentage of the whole. Showing it that way makes it appear that the appropriations have declined over time, which I would be very surprised to see.

Love the Dem "logic"

"A 17-18 year old isn't old enough or wise enough to understand the lifelong ramifications of student loans!"

But

"Oh a 3 year old said he wants to be a girl now? Get the dick saw!"

For some insight into what we're dealing with, look at the responses to that tweet. One of them is like "Bruh...I'm ok with this as long as the govt is using their own money to do it and not taxpayer money."

We're screwed.

Maroon Dawn said:

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Love the Dem "logic"

"A 17-18 year old isn't okd enough or wise enough to understand the lifelong ramifications of student loans!"

But

"Oh a 3 year old said he wants to be a girl now? Get the dick saw!"

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Savage...but oh so accurate.

YNWA.2013 said:

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Which I know may not seem like a lot, but to those making under $80,000 (these include your nurses, your kids' teachers, their coaches, your physical therapists, your social workers, your reporters), it make take many years to get out of.

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A nurse making under $80k is either lazy or works part time. Same for PT

Teachers/coaches have loan forgiveness programs currently. Same for social workers

Reporters? gtfo. I don't give two ****s about them.

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Don't disagree however the Dems were in control and Trump couldn't figure out how to get out of this mess. As soon as the Dems took control, all the PPP were forgiven.

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They were in charge, but then later took control? Pick one.
Trump signed the bill on 6/5/2020 to make it tax free forgiveness.
That bill passed the house 471-1
Trump filed bankruptcy six times.
Dude knows how to make the rules work.

I'm not reading all the crap here because it's meaningless yap.

You took out a loan, you should pay it back. Period. End of story.