Current Events > AOC claims opppoisition to student loan debt forgiveness is just Hazing Culture

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., pushed back on the idea that it was unfair for some students to receive student loan forgiveness after others have already spent thousands to pay off theirs.

"I think it's kind of this hazing mentality -- like, because I was hazed, now everyone else needs to be hazed in the future," she told journalist Nicholas Ballasy.

The video, posted by Ballasy on Monday, came as Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats proposed removing past and future costs of attending college.

"As someone who's paid off thousands of dollars in student loans, I don't think that repeating the same mistake and perpetuating it for the next generation is fair," Ocasio-Cortez said.
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"You know, our generation has been screwed over in a lot of ways -- many ways, and student loans is one of them. I think student loan forgiveness is one basic right," she added.

The freshman congresswoman, 28, posted her own student debt at a congressional hearing earlier in September. I literally made a student loan payment while I was sitting here at this chair, and I looked at my balance, and it was $20,237.16, she said. I just made a payment that took me down to $19,000 so I feel really accomplished right now," she added, apparently mocking Republicans.

Conservatives have generally predicted student loan forgiveness has an unrealistic price tag and might encourage universities to continue hiking tuition.

When Ballasy asked Ocasio-Cortez about this incentive, she touted the idea of tuition-free public college. "I actually believe that student loan forgiveness should be passed in the same fell swoop as tuition-free public colleges and universities because if you don't pass tuition-free public college, then you do re-create the problem," she said.

Full ARticle https://www.foxnews.com/media/aoc-hazing-mentality-student-loans



I mean she has a point. "It's not fair because I had to do it." isn't very logical.

I mean is using the internet unfair because guys in the 80s didn't have it? That's what progress is.

The argument should be whether or not debt forgiveness is a good thing, not that its unfair to guys who paid their debts. If it's a good thing then that doesn't matter.
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but people vote on emotion, and emotionally it doesn't feel fair that everyone's debts are forgiven but yours weren't

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Why does ANYONE deserve to have their loan, that they willingly took, paid off for them?
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Pepys Monster posted...

Why does ANYONE deserve to have their loan, that they willingly took, paid off for them?

Because the cost was criminally inflated for everyone that's gone to college in the past 40 or so years. And because a rational system would have had the vast majority of these people go for free as an investment in society. And because the government and private businesses shouldn't be making money off the economic desperation of entire generations of people.

Plus you talk about "choice" but it's a "choice" in about the same way working at all is a choice or paying housing costs and electricity is a choice. For people who aren't rich or who don't have rich families, taking loans and going to college was the only way to even get to the middle class. As a black immigrant from a working class family, I sure as hell would be working a poverty level job if I hadn't "willingly" taken on a trillion in loans.
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Can we have all credit card debt paid off next?!?!
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WTF? This woman is an idiot and I'm pro-forgiveness. If you are in her district, please vote this moron out.
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My bank demanding I pay back my mortgage loan is just hazing culture. Houses are too expensive and its just not fair! And requiring people to work to live is just hazing culture, too.
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She's absolutely right. Couldn't agree with her more.

wtf i love bailing out privileged people now

Fine, I allow it. Is everyone happy now and willing to admit that adults taking loans are responsible for those loan payments?
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KILBOTz posted...

My bank demanding I pay back my mortgage loan is just hazing culture. Houses are too expensive and its just not fair! And requiring people to work to live is just hazing culture, too.

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Instead of "fuck you got mine" it's "fuck you paid mine".
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I disagree. I don't think there is a single logical reason to want to forgive student loan debt and not give those who paid off their loans reimbursement for those payments.

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Until a Democrat talks about what happens to loans taken out after the bill is passed, it's all just fluff BS. Until college cost is heavily regulated, this issue will only get worse.
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Hop103 posted...

WTF? This woman is an idiot and I'm pro-forgiveness. If you are in her district, please vote this moron out.

She's being primaried, after offering money to anyone who primaries Dem incumbents, lmao.
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UnfairRepresent posted...

, because I was hazed, now everyone else needs to be hazed in the future,

shes not wrong. people do have this bitter mentality
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KILBOTz posted...

Fine, I allow it. Is everyone happy now and willing to admit that adults taking loans are responsible for those loan payments?

What? You think adults who make choices of their own free will should actually have to deal with the consequences of that choice?

We can't have that kind of bigotry in literally the current year.
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This will not only make college education worse but now jobs will ask for more time spent in school then actually working, it is bad enough that from age 5 to age 21 or 22 many people are in regular school then college. If they erase student loan debts not only will the education get worse but the low bar being a bachelor's degree will rise making it as worthless as an associate's degree is now most places.

Wasting more time in school instead of being in your career is a bad thing and this will only make college mandatory lessening it's value once again.
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lol ocasio-cortez is on this again huh?

Wewillrocku posted...

lol ocasio-cortez is on this again huh?

I don't think she ever stopped
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Idiot says idiotic thing. Shocking.
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Let's fix the real problem with skyrocketing tuition (and consequently, obscene student loan debts): everyone and their grandmother have been told by the powers that be that they absolutely have to attend college to get by in the adult world even though trade schools and direct job training are just as viable options for obtaining a living wage if not more so (and I'm sure the commonly-repeated pejorative "uneducated" doesn't help one bit either).

It's just pure supply and demand economics: if the demand for something is high, the price the supplier sets is going to be high; and if demand is low, the price is going to be set low in return.
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She's not wrong

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I agree with AOC.
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College costs are a scam tbh. One of the biggest scams in our history. It needs immediate reform.

EIiza posted...

Allow for student loan debt to be wiped upon declaring bankruptcy and then we can talk about equating credit cards and mortgages to federal student loans.

Then, lock student loan interest at 0%.

Does anyone know why college tuition is so high? It's the same reason why the cost of living is so high and why things are more expensive. When the government will basically give you the money you need to pay for it, then of course colleges will raise the prices. They know it's guaranteed to get paid for. The brunt falls on the average person. Which also gets the brunt whenever the government wants to borrow money from a fake private bank that prints money out of nothing then charges interest on something with no tangible value. The brunt always fall on the common person. These big institutions don't give a shit. They work together to fuck us.

You don't think the colleges and government had a plan for this? Shit we can make even more money and the brunt falls on the common man? The common man who almost no government in the history of the world has ever given a shit about? We pretending they care now? Based off what?
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lilJoe457 posted...

Does anyone know why college tuition is so high?

It's simpler than that. It's just been a death spiral for about 25 years now.

1. Student loans became incredibly easy to get, around the mid 1990s.
2. States discovered that it was relatively painless to cut secondary education funding, because loans were so easy to get anyway.
3. Colleges increased tuition, because loans were easy to get, and the goddamned state cut funding again.
4. GoTo 2.

Pepys Monster posted...

Why does ANYONE deserve to have their loan, that they willingly took, paid off for them?

College is a scam and took advantage of naive young adults

It's got nothing to do with hazing... I just don't see how this particular wealth transfer makes any sense. If you've already earned a bachelor's degree, you belong to a privileged class. The two-thirds of Americans without a four-year degree should not be paying off the loans of the top 34%.
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I try not to get tied up in politics, especially on CE, but MY GOD is this woman a moron.

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She's not wrong
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MabusIncarnate posted...

I try not to get tied up in politics, especially on CE,

liar
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UnfairRepresent posted...

"You know, our generation has been screwed over in a lot of ways -- many ways, and student loans is one of them. I think student loan forgiveness is one basic right," she added.

Uh, what? We are making it a basic human right to have free college?

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A entire generation was fed a sack of lies and screwed over entirely by the previous ones all for the sake of lining their pockets. Its f***** disgusting, one of the most morally bankrupt scams ever in human history.

Then those same people have the nerve still to s*** on our generation as if it weren't their responsibility to set up any groundwork for our success.
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Prismsblade posted...

A entire generation was fed a sack of lies and screwed over entirely by the previous ones all for the sake of lining their pockets. Its f***** disgusting, one of the most morally bankrupt scams ever in human history.

Then those same people have the nerve still to s*** on our generation as if it weren't their responsibility to set up any groundwork for our success.

They/we weren't lied to.

College and education is important. The PROBLEM is the inflation of said institutions who ran with the need for college and decided it was OK to charge 40k a year.

Even now, certain apprenticeships require college credits to be accepted into.


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chrono625 posted...

Prismsblade posted...

A entire generation was fed a sack of lies and screwed over entirely by the previous ones all for the sake of lining their pockets. Its f***** disgusting, one of the most morally bankrupt scams ever in human history.

Then those same people have the nerve still to s*** on our generation as if it weren't their responsibility to set up any groundwork for our success.

They/we weren't lied to.

College and education is important. The PROBLEM is the inflation of said institutions who ran with the need for college and decided it was OK to charge 40k a year.

Even now, certain apprenticeships require college credits to be accepted into.

I never said it wasn't, regardless our generation were taught the only means of success in life was to attend collage. Which is a lie. And fooling people into believing it was has set youths back either decades, if not outright ruined their futures.

Another lie was fooling us into believing collage was for EVERYONE, aptitudes be damned. And what you end up with are countless people attending who probabaly shouldn't for a multitude of reasons.
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she's completely right.

what they should do to be fair is to give reparations to people who already paid off their loans to offset it. then everyone is no longer burdened by their loans which affect/affected their lives negatively.

oh, that's too expensive? so you want the benefit but don't want others to have it too. interesting.

Fam_Fam posted...

she's completely right.

what they should do to be fair is to give reparations to people who already paid off their loans to offset it. then everyone is no longer burdened by their loans which affect/affected their lives negatively.

oh, that's too expensive? so you want the benefit but don't want others to have it too. interesting.

"we should give the modern day internet to the 1970s, wait that's impossible? Then no one should use the internet

also ban vaccines "

That's what progress is, you make progression.

The people in the past get left behind by definition

The question is whether or not it's a good idea
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UnfairRepresent posted...

The people in the past get left behind by definition

they don't have to be though

you're acting like those people are gone, but people who paid off student loan debt are just as around as the people who still have student loan debt

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Do you liberals really think you can make any bullshit theory sound intelligent or plausible if you just throw the word "culture" behind it?

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Balrog0 posted...

UnfairRepresent posted...

The people in the past get left behind by definition

they don't have to be though

you're acting like those people are gone, but people who paid off student loan debt are just as around as the people who still have student loan debt

yes but it's not the past
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UnfairRepresent posted...

Fam_Fam posted...

she's completely right.

what they should do to be fair is to give reparations to people who already paid off their loans to offset it. then everyone is no longer burdened by their loans which affect/affected their lives negatively.

oh, that's too expensive? so you want the benefit but don't want others to have it too. interesting.

"we should give the modern day internet to the 1970s, wait that's impossible? Then no one should use the internet

also ban vaccines "

That's what progress is, you make progression.

The people in the past get left behind by definition

The question is whether or not it's a good idea

Balrog0 posted...

UnfairRepresent posted...

The people in the past get left behind by definition

they don't have to be though

you're acting like those people are gone, but people who paid off student loan debt are just as around as the people who still have student loan debt

yes, this

wtf are you talking about - giving people in the 1970s internet?

I've had like 60k in loans. I'm down to 17k right now.

By the time forgiveness is passed, I'd be almost done paying them off. If I pay nothing, until then, I'll save like 18k (including interest). If I didn't pay anytihng at all, I'd save like 70k.

Why should it have been better for me to have not paid my loans for these past several years?

UnfairRepresent posted...

Balrog0 posted...

UnfairRepresent posted...

The people in the past get left behind by definition

they don't have to be though

you're acting like those people are gone, but people who paid off student loan debt are just as around as the people who still have student loan debt

yes but it's not the past

people who have paid their loans did not do it in the past

???

KILBOTz posted...

My bank demanding I pay back my mortgage loan is just hazing culture. Houses are too expensive and its just not fair! And requiring people to work to live is just hazing culture, too.

lol

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ColdOne666 posted...

KILBOTz posted...

My bank demanding I pay back my mortgage loan is just hazing culture. Houses are too expensive and its just not fair! And requiring people to work to live is just hazing culture, too.

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I mean, weigh whether or not it would be a good policy. Fine. But don't say stupid shit like loan forgiveness is a basic right.
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