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Should Student Loans Be Forgiven or Enforced?

Just tax the shit out of hedge funds and Wall Street to cover it. Those scumbags make trillions a year risk free by shorting companies to the dirt and out of business. They bring very little to the American economy other than lining the pockets of already wealthy hedge fund managers and investors. I understand our politicians are beholden to them, but if they weren’t, that’s the right play. They should be taxed significantly for their ability to game and manipulate the stock market to extreme profits.
Maybe you should ask the Democrats why they removed the "carried forward interest" tax provision from Biden's glorious tax and spend bill? Talk is cheap.
 
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Where do people stand on this issue? I know college tuition/room&board is out of control at a lot of Universities and at the same time it seems the idea of cancelling student loans is penalizing those students who were fiscally responsible with their college choices.
No!
 
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It not a left or right or middle issue. It’s a being or not being a deadbeat issue. If you borrow to go to college and major in some subjects that pays less than cooking fries at McDonalds that’s your fault. Why should anyone think that’s the responsible thing to do. Amazing

Once loans became easy to get guess what, that’s when colleges started sucking at the Government trough. Until the 70s unless you were in a professional school you could actually work and go to school and graduate debt free. And to those that think colleges overseas are free they forget to tell you it’s competitive from day one and the test you take in 8th grade allows you to go to high school. Then from HS you must take real entrance exams not SAT or ACT but real subject driven test. If you don’t score well in math and science you won’t be in a engineering school. 1000 kids for 100 spots. That’s life

Wow, I did not know this AT all. And to think, all you hear from some is how much better it is over in Europe.. free college.
 
I'm good with forgiveness of 20% of the loan amount, but a hard cap at $10,000.00.

If your loan is 10k, then 2k is forgiven.
If your loan is 50k or more, only 10k is forgiven.

I base 20% on the fact that state universities used to be funded ~60-65% by tax dollars. They are now ~30-35% funded by tax dollars. I figure that if state governments had kept the funding up, then tuition would be cheaper like it was in the 90s. I'm not sure why private colleges rose so high, so instead of making up 30%, my proposal is to go to 20% to account for the mix of public & private colleges.
 
I am against this loan forgiveness….however, I have just put both daughters through college and they each have $3-$5K in subsidized loans (i.e., no interest until 6 months after graduation). all student loans have not been accruing interest since 2020.
I have the money sitting in 529 to pay these but my financial advisor recommended waiting to see if they will be forgiven. As much as I pay for other peoples government subsidies, I figure I am due a little relief. However, I think it is very irresponsible for the government to do this but I may as well benefit since I have never gotten any stimulus or covid money.
 
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Oscar from the Office sorta sums up my feelings on student loan forgiveness

"Angela's engaged to a gay man. As a gay man, I'm horrified. As a friend of Angela's, horrified. As a lover of elegant weddings, I'm a little excited! But overall... horrified."
 
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Wow, I did not know this AT all. And to think, all you hear from some is how much better it is over in Europe.. free college.
Get this, my step son scored 1560 on SAT test. He now a senior at Virginia Tech majoring in Electrical Engineering. However he was born in Taiwan, bilingual, and wanted to go to University of Taiwan. It’s so competitive their that his score of 1560 could not get him in that University. He was accepted at Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech but his scores was not good enough in Taiwan. Everything their from college entry to playing competitive golf is an on going competition.
 
Get this, my step son scored 1560 on SAT test. He now a senior at Virginia Tech majoring in Electrical Engineering. However he was born in Taiwan, bilingual, and wanted to go to University of Taiwan. It’s so competitive their that his score of 1560 could not get him in that University. He was accepted at Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech but his scores was not good enough in Taiwan. Everything their from college entry to playing competitive golf is an on going competition.
U. Taiwan is competitive, but ranks 286 in electrical engineering by US News.
Va. Tech ranks 55 in electrical engineering by US News.

Cudos to your son for his intelligence and hard work.
 
Where do people stand on this issue? I know college tuition/room&board is out of control at a lot of Universities and at the same time it seems the idea of cancelling student loans is penalizing those students who were fiscally responsible with their college choices.
NOBODY made them go to college and get some needless degree to make 50-60k a year...YOU make a bill YOU should pay for it...
 
As a college graduate with a hefty student loan balance, I'm all for forgiveness. Expecting an 18-year old kid to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives straight out of high school is a setup for failure. It took me 10 years to figure it out. A lot of changes in majors and different coursework occurred during that time.
YOUR problem...NOT MINE!!
 
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Even as mostly a free market person, I think several of these loans should be forgiven. Alot of what went on amounts to predatory lending in other arenas.

That said, the entire issue could easily be resolved if they just removed/invalidated the completely unfair super strong bankruptcy protection given to student loans.

For those that don't know, discharging student loans in bankruptcy is virtually impossible because they're given special protection. Get rid of that and the whole issue solves itself
Credit cards are predatory loans for kids too so I want any interest I paid 20 years ago forgiven also, fair is fair.

Had an old high school buddy want them forgiven and I said does that mean my gma and parents get their hard-earned money back since they paid for mine? He said no if they can pay for it they should have to. I said that’s penalizing parents for being hard working by fiscally responsible people and your parents weren’t so you get a free ride? He said yes that’s what it means.

listen you signed up and wrote your name on the line. Deal with it. It sucks but you signed it. Many people have credit card debt the same way but it’ll never be forgiven so why should college? I haven’t paid interest on a credit card in 15 years after learning my lesson.

They’re turn to learn.
 
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Credit cards are predatory loans for kids too so I want any interest I paid 20 years ago forgiven also, fair is fair.

Had an old high school buddy want them forgiven and I said does that mean my gma and parents get their hard-earned money back since they paid for mine? He said no if they can pay for it they should have to. I said that’s penalizing parents for being hard working by fiscally responsible people and your parents weren’t so you get a free ride? He said yes that’s what it means.

listen you signed up and wrote your name on the line. Deal with it. It sucks but you signed it. Many people have credit card debt the same way but it’ll never be forgiven so why should college? I haven’t paid interest on a credit card in 15 years after learning my lesson.

They’re turn to learn.

You can bankrupt those credit cards. You can't bankrupt student loans. Huge difference.

That's all I'm asking. Let the free market solution of bankruptcy enter the equation and the whole problem solves itself.

Also you are right about those credit cards marketed towards students. They were predatory. Iirc that's why they're no longer allowed
 
D day for loan forgiveness. Looks like $10k per person totaling up to a whopping $300 billion. So these trillions and billions that are getting thrown around the last couple of years had me wondering. What does it cost EACH taxpayer (144.6 million of us as of 2019) for things like loan forgiveness? For this $10k its essentially $2,074 per taxpayer. Unbelievable.
 
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A big No. As everyone with at least a 10% functioning brain knows this is just another way to buy votes for the democrats. If mush head and his staff will forgive $10.000. Of mortgage/automotive loans of everyone that has a full time job and has paid taxes for at least one year than okay. But that would defeat the purpose. It just sucks for the responsible Americans that have worked and paid back their loan, or in my daughters case worked to get a partial scholarship and graduated with no student loan.
 
Why are the "losers" in this scheme the folks who did the right thing?

Plus those that didn't go to college. This represents a massive burden shift from blue collar folks to wannabe white collar elites.

Actual elites are excluded because they certainly didn't need loans to attend school. Their parents just paid for it.

The other question noone is asking - how is this fair to future recipients of student loans?
 
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Who is this going to help the most? Yes, entitled white collared/higher paid borrowers who by and large vote for and are current/future financial contributors to the Democrat Party. Also, mostly liberal colleges who are robbing their students blind with these obscene tuition costs offering meaningless degrees that is not going to help a large % of these students in the real world. Who is going to get screwed the most? Mostly blue collared lower to middle class taxpayers who tend to vote Republican now. Question is how many liberals who did the right thing and paid their loans are going to get turned off by this? Its purely a political calculation by a President who's poll numbers are in the toilet and a party that is likely to lose their power after the midterms.

Nothing Washington does on either side of the aisle is to benefit the American people. Everything is about politics. What polls well and what doesn't.
 
It’s amazing to me that in my lifetime the Democrats went from the champions of the poor to this.

It amounts to a naked attempt to buy votes:

"If the rumors are true, we've got a problem. And tragically, we’ve experienced this so many times before," NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement on Tuesday. "This is not how you treat Black voters who turned out in record numbers and provided 90% of their vote to once again save democracy in 2020."

Is it any wonder we have no self discipline? Spend like crazy and expect someone else to pay. Have sex and expect the unwanted fetus to pay. Lockdown and enjoy life from a laptop and pay no mind to who suffers. This is a broken country.
 
President doesn't have the authority to do so, just like the eviction moratorium. Weird our media is just running with it, while the president is willfully just breaking the law.

Also- this is left wing trickle down economics. Give the wealthy more money. Majority of this country didnt go to college.

Also- it does nothing but reward the ppl who did this in the first place...the schools. Doesn't do anything to lower the real cost of college, and invites schools to raise costs even more
 
Just to be clear, I am very much opposed to this. I paid off my loans, but in any event I earn too much money to be helped by this. But I reject the notion that only "liberal elites" go to college and have debt. How did things get flipped around to where (according to some here) Democrats go to college while Republicans are poor and blue collar? It used to be he exact opposite. Trust me, there are many pro-business, well educated, and successful Republicans.
 
Just to be clear, I am very much opposed to this. I paid off my loans, but in any event I earn too much money to be helped by this. But I reject the notion that only "liberal elites" go to college and have debt. How did things get flipped around to where (according to some here) Democrats go to college while Republicans are poor and blue collar? It used to be he exact opposite. Trust me, there are many pro-business, well educated, and successful Republicans.
Yeah, I don't think this one has political reward specific to either party, I think it is an attempt to appeal to a very wide swath of people in hopes that a majority of them can be persuaded to vote democrat though. Very much like Bill Clinton and his college campaign that pushed him ahead in the election, this is a very poorly masked attempt to do the same thing.
 
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Democrats go to college while Republicans are poor and blue collar? It used to be he exact opposite.


What???? It never was the opposite. The Democratic party has always said, "We're the party of the poor" but they never were. They were just trying to sway votes.

I have so many poor people in my family who claim to be Democrats because they are poor. I say to them, "Soooo, you do so much better when a Democrat is running things right? What about a Republican???" Knowing all along that things haven't changed no matter who's in office....
 
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The decision seems bad economically, bad for future tuition hikes, bad for taxpayers who paid their loans or never went to college, and just exacerbates the problem, solving nothing.

The decision is good for some debt holders and for politics.

Other than continuing to curate votes by creating an entitled class, It does not seem like a smart move.
 
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I don't understand how the President has the power to forgive $300 Billion without Congressional authorization. What's next cancelled mortgages for residences in "disadvantaged cities" (i.e. liberal voting bastions).

Its also funny that +60% of this gift is going to upper income people (according to the Brookings institution).
 
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It also seems as if this would increase inflation, inasmuch as it will stimulate spending. I agree that this is a pretty base level political move. Although, I imagine that most people who benefit from it will be in favor of it.
 
The decision seems bad economically, bad for future tuition hikes, bad for taxpayers who paid their loans or never went to college, and just exacerbates the problem, solving nothing.

The decision is good for some debt holders and for politics.

Other than continuing to curate votes by creating an entitled class, It does not seem like a smart move.
In other words... its a perfect Democratic policy.
 
As many have probably already said, need to lower cost of college, put some type of cap on it, force University’s to figure their budget out without charging exorbitant amounts. Also should factor inflation into that cap.
 
As many have probably already said, need to lower cost of college, put some type of cap on it, force University’s to figure their budget out without charging exorbitant amounts. Also should factor inflation into that cap.
So you think it's the colleges and universities that are the problem and not the government? People complained about having 30k worth of loans when they got out of school 30 years ago and said it was way too much. Today its around 100k. In the future it will be more. I would prefer the government never get the ability to "cap" anything to be honest. They have their nasty, sticky fingers in way too much as it is.
 
Classic government ineptitude in action. Help create insanely high cost of college by making a metric shit ton of loans and grants available. Then scratch your head and wonder why tuition is so high. Then move the burden of the borrowed money away from college educated high earners, and let non-college educated lower earners pay for it.

****ing morons…all of ‘em!
 
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So you think it's the colleges and universities that are the problem and not the government? People complained about having 30k worth of loans when they got out of school 30 years ago and said it was way too much. Today its around 100k. In the future it will be more. I would prefer the government never get the ability to "cap" anything to be honest. They have their nasty, sticky fingers in way too much as it is.
Guess it’s colleges and government together complicit. I know there are many layers but maybe similar to hospitals and insurance companies complicit? Hospitals raise prices to amounts we can’t afford, then work together with insurance companies..in the end we get these huge bills while hospitals and insurance companies take in the $$$.
 
If my tenant gets her loan paid off, while my taxes go up.. im raising her effing rent. If my property Taxes go up to pay for NY immigration shit, I'll work extra hard on tax write-offs.

Not going to let this current government empty my pockets anymore.. at least not sitting down.
 
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Also- it does nothing but reward the ppl who did this in the first place...the schools. Doesn't do anything to lower the real cost of college, and invites schools to raise costs even more
If we're doing student loan forgiveness and NOT doing anything to change the system, we'll be right back here in just a few years. It's still broke. Kids are still borrowing way too much money to get a degree.

At the very least, schools need to look at the requirements for degrees and cut out classes that are only of marginal value to students, like being required to take say volleyball to satisfy a PE requirement. How is that important to me being an engineer/teacher/lawyer/whatever? It's not.
 
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