On loan forgiveness
(I’m a college professor. Of course I’ve been paying attention.)
And honestly, I’ve been surprised at some people’s reaction to the notion that we might retire some of this country’s $1.75 trillion in student debt. I mean, honestly, Bro. Mitt:
I have been paying attention to this discussion, as I teach at a college where students graduate with an average debt of $27,000. (To be honest, that seems low to me.) Their average monthly loan payment post-graduation is $258 — a car payment, which can mean that a young adult doesn’t fully launch for years, under the weight of this debt.
So let me break this down. People (like Sen. Romney) who disagree with student loan forgiveness generally fall into a few well-defined camps. Namely:
I struggled and ate ramen and lived at home with my folks and paid my student loans, and everyone else should, too.
What is this? Socialism? Thanks, Obama.
We don’t want to start loan forgiveness — essentially a bailout — as it encourages laziness. Just look at what such forgiveness did for (according to ProPublica):
Bank of America
Citigroup
General Motors (paid back in full)
Wells Fargo
JP Morgan Chase
Goldman Sachs
Morgan Stanley
U.S. Bancorp
I suppose bailing out young adults wouldn’t be in keeping with our time-honored tradition of giving as much money as fast as we can to the rich. Still: Forgiving student loans just may become a reality. If bailouts are good enough for corporations, they’re good enough for the rest of us.
Because I attended college while the dinosaurs roamed the Earth my student load debt was only $7K which equalled my first years starting salary at United Bank on Pearl Street in Hartford. It took me 5 years to pay it off and due to my ignorance I lost some interest forgiveness as I did not start paying it off per the fine print. I FULLY support debt forgiveness especially after reading your column today AND Heather Cox Richardson's column today that illustrates how the country is run by the top 1% who have reaped tremendous wealth as the rest of us struggle with this game of life!
Yeah, why do we think that primary and secondary education should be taxpayer funded but that university (and trade schools for that matter) should not? It's a pretty good economic deal in the sense that university educated people are something like twice as productive as high-school diploma holders. They will ultimately pay way more than twice as much in taxes since our tax system is progressive. For sure college-educated individuals are less likely to be a drag on the economy by needing public assistance or contributing to crime, which is extremely costly.
The Nordic countries, Germany and now 5 states including New York State all offer publicly funded four-year college educations under certain conditions. Several other states offer two-year college educations under certain conditions. They want to build and keep skilled workforces.