I will admit upfront that I have a personal stake in the issue of student loan forgiveness. I took out loans back in the 80s. I graduated from college and then I got married and had a baby. I made payments until our budget got so tight that I applied for a forbearance.
Fast forward to now and I still owe Citibank a lot of money. The original loan was not so much , but the 9% interest that has continued to be piled on since 1983 is five times the principal. At this point I feel the interest is unconscionable .
In my case , I won’t have to make payments on the loans unless I get a job. As you might imagine, that fact is a disincentive for me to work because most of my paycheck would go to those 30 year old loans.
By the way, being the full-time, unpaid caregiver of your own disabled child doesn’t grant you exemption from loan repayment, but being a teacher might.
I have noticed that many conservatives are against loan forgiveness , presumably under any circumstances. “I paid my loan! You should, too!” they say. They seem quite angry about the idea that someone might get a break even if it doesn’t hurt them in any way.
The fact is we’re all being screwed over constantly by unjust taxes, illogical laws and corrupt regulations. We should be happy when a fellow citizen gets a little mercy. Maybe that could become a trend!
I have a few questions for people who are against loan forgiveness .
1) Are you aware that our government has paid trillions of dollars to banks and too-big-to-fail corporations over the past couple decades?
2) Have you ever heard of the year of Jubilee in the Bible in which all debts were forgiven and slaves were freed and property was returned?
And 3)Did you know that credit card debts are no longer held against you after seven years?
If God thought forgiving debts every 50th year was a good idea, why shouldn’t we ? Is there no mercy for people who made bad financial decisions or had bad things happen to them?
I propose that considering that our government literally creates money out of thin air and has been since 1914 with the creation of the Federal Reserve system, that this is a great time to forgive student loans by “paying” them off with magic money and give the citizens of our country a true Great Reset. I don’t see this as any different than giving billions of dollars to banks.
I won’t go into the reasons that school tuition and housing costs have risen 1200% since I went to school.
Thoughts?
Blue Skies and Green Pastures 
Agreed. I have been paying them, but like you mentioned, under the teacher forgiveness thing (where they rarely ever forgive loans). Every time Biden extends us not paying, I do a little happy dance. I am hoping he’ll just squash the whole thing.
I have mixed feelings on this.
First of all, I think we should get student loans out of the hands of banks and have it run by the DOE. The gov’t could give loans at just above prime and would not have a profit motive.
The fact that you cannot get out of student loans and they still charge some of the highest interest rates is just wrong. I can get a mortgage on a house for 4% but a student loan is 9%?
The saying used to be – go to the best college you can afford. Now it seems to be – go to the most prestigious college that will take you regardless of cost.
I’m pretty sure that English 101 at State U is 99% the same as what they teach at Yale for 4x the cost.
I have family who went to Prestigious U because their friends went there and they are still paying for it.
It was an ill advised move that their parents should have said no to.
All of that “magic money” is going to come back and haunt us. so I’m a bit more conservative fiscally than you may be.
If we are going to forgive loans than a great deal of due diligence needs to go into the process and it must include means testing. There is no way that my grandchildren should pay a high paid software developer’s tuition just because they don’t want to.
There are plenty of dead beats out there along with all of the people who paid $50K per year to get a job paying $35K per year.
I went to State U and I’m doing just fine.
Someone needs to talk to kids and their parents about how the math works and that more money doesn’t necessarily mean a better education.
I’m fine with means testing for this . As for the global debt , I feel like it’s unsustainable and will be basically written off when we move to a new currency and a new world order. I just don’t know when they’ll do it .
I’m just talking about US debt. If that gets written off every economy in the world will collapse.
As for this global government, never going to happen. Yugoslavia is how many countries now? How about South Sudan or Moldova? The world keeps splitting apart. So I don’t think you need to spend another moment worrying about a global government. And a global currency? The US dollar is as close as we may get to that. But you still need pounds in London to buy a pint.
I think it will be more like United States of the world. Each country will still have certain powers. But there’s already a plan in action to create a global, legally-binding pandemic treaty with wide power including mandates for health laws and funding . It’s the first step.
It will probably end up like the International Criminal court. The US isn’t a member and isn’t bound by it. Can you imagine the US, China and Russia agreeing to be bound by the same laws? We can’t even get the Russians to follow the Geneva Conventions. And the Chinese are not interested in our concept of human rights. I think there is overwhelming evidence that a global government will never materialize.
I won’t worry about it. I just started writing a book so that ought to keep me busy .😊