Poll of the Day > Biden is asking the Education Secretary if he can CANCEL $50K of STUDENT DEBT!!!

(+) Yeah! (+)

President Joe Biden is asking Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona if he can cancel up to 50,000 in student loans debt for millions of borrowers!!

White House COF, Ron Klein that Biden has asked the secretary to figure out if he has the legal authority to wipe out their balances

On the campaign trail, he promised to cancel 10,000 per borrower but prominent Democrats, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez pressured him to pursue 50,000

Klein says in the memo "Hopefully we'll see in the next few weeks and then he'll look at the legal authorty, he'll look at the policy issues around that and he'll make a decision".

Press secretary, Jen Psaki ignored a query about why the 40,000 difference between what Biden and Schumer wanted to do as he continues to call on Congress to cancel 10,000 in student loan borrowers

Earlier in the week, the administration announced it was expanding the pause on student loan payments for more than 1 million borrowers who defaulted on private loans that were guaranteed by the feds

Do you support cancelling 50,000 in student loans?

https://i.imgur.com/cAvypnC.jpg

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Fuck no

This shit is ridiculous. Even if there is debt forgiveness, it should NEVER cut into the principle. At most, wipe out the interest. This is a disgusting massive handout to the priveleged and irresponsible. Those who opted for state schools, worked for scholarships, scrimped and saved to pay off their debt, and/or didn't even go to college at all* shouldn't be forced to finance the rest.

This is monstrously unfair, and if they actually do this, it'd push many people and probably even me to vote Republican in outrage. There's so much fucking shit to fix in this country, and Biden's been focused on so much fringe extremist bs...

* And those that didn't go to college are statistically making less money than those that did, so this is a literal Reverse Robin Hood maneuver!

nice

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Then he's not asking for "$50k of student debt," he's asking for hundreds of millions in student debt. And that would be fucking insane.

streamofthesky posted...

At most, wipe out the interest.

I could get behind that. It wouldn't be a bad compromise.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Except when you cancel debt, the cost effectively becomes zero.

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I've paid off all the debt I took on (granted I did drop out and didn't take on as much as I could have) but I'd still be all for this if it's feasible.

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50k is nuts. I might be in it for 20k, definitely 10k, but not 50k. If you're choosing to get a degree that expensive then you deal with it, degrees don't need to cost that much.

Also I doubt it's legal to do without congress being involved.

I'd rather see that money invested in making college more affordable going forward.

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So that's, what, about half of the debt most students have or a quarter?

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Unbridled9 posted...

So that's, what, about half of the debt most students have or a quarter?

If I recall correctly I think I saw the statistics a while back that suggested most people have around 20k in debt.

funkyfritter posted...

I'd rather see that money invested in making college more affordable going forward.

It's less a matter of investing more money than it is putting effort into controlling costs. The more money you put into something, the less incentive there is to control costs and the money just gets gobbled up by bureaucracy. A lot of college administrators and professors are bringing home six-figure salaries, which is absurd.

And student loans in general are what helped drive rising tuition costs, because there was little incentive to curb spending since people were going to be able to pay no matter what. You don't need to "invest" to make it more affordable, you need to cut and consolidate. More importantly, there needs to be a national understanding that not everybody has to go to college in the first place, as well as the fact that there's a lot of bloat in the programs themselves (particularly with gen ed courses, which mostly exist to finance less-popular departments)

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Zeus posted...

It's less a matter of investing more money than it is putting effort into controlling costs. The more money you put into something, the less incentive there is to control costs and the money just gets gobbled up by bureaucracy. A lot of college administrators and professors are bringing home six-figure salaries, which is absurd.

And student loans in general are what helped drive rising tuition costs, because there was little incentive to curb spending since people were going to be able to pay no matter what. You don't need to "invest" to make it more affordable, you need to cut and consolidate. More importantly, there needs to be a national understanding that not everybody has to go to college in the first place, as well as the fact that there's a lot of bloat in the programs themselves (particularly with gen ed courses, which mostly exist to finance less-popular departments)

Bloated admin payrolls and massive amounts spent on having really extravagant facilities and grounds (because sadly, that attracts prospective students more than actual academics ...have I mentioned yet that I primarily blame the students themselves for getting into such debt?) is the biggest driver in the rapidly increasing costs.
Cheap and easy student loans are the primary means by which these increases have been financed.
The single best and most important change that should be enacted immediately is undoing the 2005 change in the law that made student loans nearly impossible to shed in bankruptcy. If loans could again be ditched in bankruptcy, lenders would be far less willing to hand over giant sums of money to 18 year olds w/ little collateral or income, and the domino effect of less students willing/able to shell out so much for college will do a lot to fix things on its own.
(only for loans going forward, can't retroactively let the old loans be shed, that's not the terms they were signed under)

They government is going to spend trillions that they don't have regardless, might as well be for something that helps people.

I have no student debt, and never have btw. I have no skin in the game. In principle I'm against reckless government spending but like I said, it's better than spending that money on drones or corporate bailouts

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Kotenks posted...

Great idea. Would help out millions. I'm all for it. That only solves one half of the student debt problem. The other half is the cost of college. It's become stupid high.

The third is that college must be evidentially useless if these students can't pay off 25k in debt (pretty much what it costs to get a degree here, assuming community college for the first two years) at a to 2.75% interest rate.

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UBI would take ~200-250k a person.

Refunding someone for choosing the status symbol or the relaxed college life is ridiculous.

streamofthesky posted...

* And those that didn't go to college are statistically making less money than those that did, so this is a literal Reverse Robin Hood maneuver!

Are you saying people like me go to university, just to make big figures afterwards?

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Nichtcrawler X posted...

Are you saying people like me go to university, just to make big figures afterwards?

Yeah, or at the very least a better working environment or cooler job. If it was purely about learning, books are very cheap. And let's face it, the education at universities is not that great anyways. You are pretty much reading from the book yourself anyways and the professors care much more about research than teaching the class. Teaching is mostly a side hustle for them, so you get a bunch of lazy power point reading most of the time from them.

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DragonClaw01 posted...

Yeah, or at the very least a better working environment or cooler job. If it was purely about learning, books are very cheap. And let's face it, the education at universities is not that great anyways. You are pretty much reading from the book yourself anyways and the professors care much more about research than teaching the class. Teaching is mostly a side hustle for them, so you get a bunch of lazy power point reading most of the time from them.

Having the guidance and physically being around other students studying the same thing as you is extremely valuable to learning. It's largely about learning the fields culture, secret handshake, and soft-skills specific for your field but difficult to write down.

But yeah classes should be flipped, hard learning coming from outside the classroom and more interaction inside it.

Nichtcrawler X posted...

Are you saying people like me go to university, just to make big figures afterwards?

No, I said statistically people who go to college make more than those who don't, so this policy is effectively taking from the poor to give to the wealthier.
I never assigned motive on why people go to college.
Try to keep up and stop fishing for reasons to be triggered.

My college has already been paid for. Can he just write me a check for 50K?

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It's only fair if all university graduates receive an equal payout.

I lived at home, worked full time, and was extremely conservative with my spending throughout my degrees. I managed to finish university debt free. Meanwhile, I know people who didn't have a job during university, put their groceries and rent on student loans, and bought new luxury items plus went to the bar every week, and they had tons of student debt. That shouldn't be rewarded.

That said, I'm not American, so whatever happens here doesn't impact me. But as someone who sacrificed a lot, I'd be upset by this. I don't buy the argument that I'm just "better off financially" than them, and thus less deserving of a handout, given I had shit clothes and an old, outdated phone all throughout university.

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lol no

Imagine being a heart or brain surgeon who went to college for many years and was able to pay off your debt only for some entitled kids getting their debt wiped out for a career in gender studies or some nonsense

Make college more affordable for sure but debt shouldn't be wiped out entirely

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streamofthesky posted...

Fuck no

This shit is ridiculous. Even if there is debt forgiveness, it should NEVER cut into the principle. At most, wipe out the interest. This is a disgusting massive handout to the priveleged and irresponsible. Those who opted for state schools, worked for scholarships, scrimped and saved to pay off their debt, and/or didn't even go to college at all* shouldn't be forced to finance the rest.

This is monstrously unfair, and if they actually do this, it'd push many people and probably even me to vote Republican in outrage. There's so much fucking shit to fix in this country, and Biden's been focused on so much fringe extremist bs...

* And those that didn't go to college are statistically making less money than those that did, so this is a literal Reverse Robin Hood maneuver!

Yeah, vote Republican so they can waste way more than what it'd cost to do this in dumbass things like Military spending and tax cuts for the top 1%.
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streamofthesky posted...

Fuck no

This shit is ridiculous. Even if there is debt forgiveness, it should NEVER cut into the principle. At most, wipe out the interest. This is a disgusting massive handout to the priveleged and irresponsible. Those who opted for state schools, worked for scholarships, scrimped and saved to pay off their debt, and/or didn't even go to college at all* shouldn't be forced to finance the rest.

This is monstrously unfair, and if they actually do this, it'd push many people and probably even me to vote Republican in outrage. There's so much fucking shit to fix in this country, and Biden's been focused on so much fringe extremist bs...

* And those that didn't go to college are statistically making less money than those that did, so this is a literal Reverse Robin Hood maneuver!

Says the rich guy that doesn't have a worry in the world. How many thousands a week do you get as an allowance from mommy and daddy?

captainjeff87 posted...

lol no

Imagine being a heart or brain surgeon who went to college for many years and was able to pay off your debt only for some entitled kids getting their debt wiped out for a career in gender studies or some nonsense

Make college more affordable for sure but debt shouldn't be wiped out entirely

Hmm, or do this because college promised you a career in writing and never fulfilled that promise.

faramir77 posted...

It's only fair if all university graduates receive an equal payout.

I lived at home, worked full time, and was extremely conservative with my spending throughout my degrees. I managed to finish university debt free. Meanwhile, I know people who didn't have a job during university, put their groceries and rent on student loans, and bought new luxury items plus went to the bar every week, and they had tons of student debt. That shouldn't be rewarded.

That said, I'm not American, so whatever happens here doesn't impact me. But as someone who sacrificed a lot, I'd be upset by this. I don't buy the argument that I'm just "better off financially" than them, and thus less deserving of a handout, given I had shit clothes and an old, outdated phone all throughout university.

I had exactly what you had and I live in America.

terrible idea. But they are rushing to bankrupt the country anyway so whatever.

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As someone who has 40k in debt, I believe this is an extremely bad idea. A lot of people out there have accumulated debt for school that they can barely pay off. Some were caught right out of high-school and weren't ready for that debt to begin with. I would wish that kind of debt to be wiped out so they have a second chance, but someone will have to fit the bill. Sallie Mae/Navient and other financial aid groups sure as hell ain't gonna do it. The country will be forced to take that loss.

Sad part is that I can only imagine where this money will be wasted if not on this. Probably to line the pockets of someone who doesn't need it.

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Hope they do and hope I qualify even though I had to consolidate my loans in order to actually pay them down because of insane interest.

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Arcturusisnow posted...

Says the rich guy that doesn't have a worry in the world. How many thousands a week do you get as an allowance from mommy and daddy?

Lived entirely on my own for over a decade now, not rich but eventually got to "middle class" after several years firmly in the "poor" tax bracket (the level where they literally refund all your federal taxes b/c you earn so little).
Intentionally didn't bother with pricier more prestigious private colleges I would've been able to get into for the state school that was much cheaper and ABET accredited.
Worked throughout college.
Saved up and didn't take any vacations or any lavish spending for years post-college to pay off the remaining debt my wife and I had.

Try your shit on someone else, troll.

Zeus posted...

Then he's not asking for "$50k of student debt," he's asking for hundreds of millions in student debt.

A.K.A. .0000002% of our military budget.


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HornedLion posted...

A.K.A. .0000002% of our military budget.

No the decimal moves the other way. Just 0.02%.

Zeus posted...

Then he's not asking for "$50k of student debt," he's asking for hundreds of millions in student debt

I actually heard it was a trillion, but I haven't looked very closely of the cost. From brookings.edu, which I know very little about.

While I need to look into it...recently I've wondered if the military budget is so high because the US sells military stuff to other countries. It seems kinda like economics, it's better to specialize in what you're good at making and then trade with other countries to get the goods you want.

blu posted...

While I need to look into it...recently I've wondered if the military budget is so high because the US sells military stuff to other countries. It seems kinda like economics, it's better to specialize in what you're good at making and then trade with other countries to get the goods you want.

Anybody that's been in the military will tell you that the military budget is that high because of how wasteful our military is.

Go shooting and have thousands of rounds left over? Shoot all of them because if we try to return it, we'll have to count the bullets.

Go on a training mission to NTC? Throw away millions of dollars of food and water at the end because we have no idea how to calculate our water and food usage.

The fiscal year is about to be up? Spend all our money on stupid shit, so our budget doesn't get cut for next year.

Our military is stupidly wasteful that it's not funny.
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lihlih posted...

Anybody that's been in the military will tell you that the military budget is that high because of how wasteful our military is.

Go shooting and have thousands of rounds left over? Shoot all of them because if we try to return it, we'll have to count the bullets.

Go on a training mission to NTC? Throw away millions of dollars of food and water at the end because we have no idea how to calculate our water and food usage.

The fiscal year is about to be up? Spend all our money on stupid shit, so our budget doesn't get cut for next year.

Our military is stupidly wasteful that it's not funny.

The blame for that is largely Congress, though, for passing the fiscal/appropriations laws they have.
Punishing a group for not spending all of their money is stupid, especially since the punishment is losing future money. A lot of times, the failure to spend it all is due to delays that likely were beyond that group's control and they actually need more money the next year since this year's spending effectively shifted there, too. Instead, they get even less money than originally planned. So they frivolously try to spend the excess to avoid punishment, then put in emergency requests for the amount they couldn't spend earlier or something.

Why don't they do honest assessments for budget projections? If they're that wasteful and they don't need that much money then why do they NEED the high budget?

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Jen0125 posted...

Why don't they do honest assessments for budget projections? If they're that wasteful and they don't need that much money then why do they NEED the high budget?

There is zero incentive to cut costs at these agencies. It is not like a business where any costs you cut you can pocket. It is the exact opposite actually, any costs you cut you lose forever, so you may as well ask for more money than you need. It is better to have too much rather than too little money.

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Zareth posted...

Stupid analogy that completely ignores opportunity costs and the fact that the people behind the trolley AREN'T DEAD. They're still there, they don't just disappear because they're inconvenient to your argument, but hey leave it to the internet to make everything into a bullshit reductionist emotional appeal.

kosherliberian posted...

Stupid analogy that completely ignores opportunity costs and the fact that the people behind the trolley AREN'T DEAD. They're still there, they don't just disappear because they're inconvenient to your argument, but hey leave it to the internet to make everything into a bullshit reductionist emotional appeal.

Sure. I guess any analogy can be stupid when you misinterpret it!

Here is the situation, tons of people have student loan debt, the cost to go to college increased drastically, but on top of that, alot of the interest rates went up, and they would take the interest and add it to the principle if you defered etc.

The over all end result was that people who took out 30k in loans now sometimes have 100k owed at this point.

That is wrong. It could be argued that charging 30k for a BA degree is wrong as well, but that is an argument for a different day.

What should be focused on first, in my opinion, is the way students loans were manipulated to make people owe 3x as much as they initially took out, before they could start paying anything back.

I have a friend for instance who graduated back in 2015. That isn't so long ago), but in the time since then he was not able to work due to taking care of sick parents and deffered his loans.

He did not realize (which is totally on him, but wasn't made apparent) that when you defer they take the interest that has accumulated and add it to the principle each year. This has caused his initial loan to more then double in just 6 years, which is insane.

Many people are in similar boats who have been on income based repayment plans, have been unemployed or underemployed and unable to make full payments etc.

The initial loans (federal loans) should not have had more then a 2% or so interest rate period (enough to keep up with inflation), and in no case should someone who went to school for 30-50k (BA or Masters), end up oweing more then double the amount they spent within less than a decade. That is just insane, and many careers take awhile to take off. As a teacher for instance which requires a bachelors degree, you (at least in CA) don't get a raise for the first 5 years, and when I left the starting salary for new teachers was still only $30k. Seriously, in the bay area, there were teachers with 10 years of experience renting ROOMS because they could not afford rent there, lol, forget about paying back the student loans they took out.

So, I support getting rid of all interest (other than perhaps 2% per year (TOTAL), and reseting student loans back to the initial amount students took out (outside of that interest).

I would say that there are some valid arguments about colleges increasing costs midway through, or not explaining all the costs initially etc as well (Especially online colleges), and you could say the government shares some blame with that (since they didn't protect the students at all and in fact made taking out the loans extremely easy).

Therefore, I could see clear to supporting a reduction in the original loan types, but I would ALSO go after the schools that charged so much and that tricked students etc, not just pass the bill on to the tax payers. Education is a multi-billion dollar industry every year, people are making a ton off it. Go after them and recoup some of the money they milked from Americans.

Focus on things people can agree on, most are not going to agree on just forgiving all of the loans or 50k of them etc, and honestly the people who are in the worst situations have much more then 50k in student loans at this point.

Revert to a base amount that was loaned, and set up ways for people to actually pay that off in a finite amount of time, no matter how much they are making.

Instead you have people who took out 30k loans that have over 100k due now, and no way to make even close enough money to even pay the interest on that, let alone start paying it down/off. You have others who can just barely pay the interest but are barely touching the principle and will take 40+ years to actually pay off the loan.

All of that is messed up, and obviously not what those people expected when they went to college. Charge people for it, but a fair amount and ensure they are not being burried by interest rates. That is a HUGE difference between people who have gone to college recently, vs people who did further in the past. In combo with the much higher cost to go to college it is literally setting people up to be in debt their whole lives, which is crazy.

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JigsawTDC posted...

Sure. I guess any analogy can be stupid when you misinterpret it!

Metaphors are hard!

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JigsawTDC posted...

Sure. I guess any analogy can be stupid when you misinterpret it!

Good I thing I didn't then, but don't let me stop you from continuing to post low effort content from Reddit astroturfers.

Zareth posted...

Metaphors are hard!

That must be why yours is so terrible.

wolfy42 posted...

The over all end result was that people who took out 30k in loans now sometimes have 100k owed at this point.

This isnt possible Wolfy. This would be a very messed up situation. At a 5% interest rate it would take a loan 25 years to get this high, it couldnt happen from needing to pay minimum payments anyway...and also after 25 years of inflation 100k is really just like 46k.

I also think 4 years of near daily instruction for 30k is a great deal. Youre paying under $20 per hour for professional instruction on a variety of interesting subjects. On top of that you get a support group, luxury gym, status symbols, job training, high end library access, professional networking, a coworking space, counseling, mental health services, and other benefits.

blu posted...

This isnt possible Wolfy. This would be a very messed up situation. At a 5% interest rate it would take a loan 25 years to get this high, it couldnt happen from needing to pay minimum payments anyway...and also after 25 years of inflation 100k is really just like 46k.

I also think 4 years of near daily instruction for 30k is a great deal. Youre paying under $20 per hour for professional instruction on a variety of interesting subjects. On top of that you get a support group, luxury gym, status symbols, job training, high end library access, professional networking, a coworking space, counseling, mental health services, and other benefits.

You're not considering private loans. By the time I consolidated mine two of them were at or over 10% interest because they raised the rate every financial quarter.

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Jen0125 posted...

You're not considering private loans. By the time I consolidated mine two of them were at or over 10% interest because they raised the rate every financial quarter.

It would still take 13 years for a 30k to turn into 100k through 10% interest. But yes, I didnt really consider private loans.

The only programs I know on that timescale are PhD programs (~7 years is on the long end), which are basically free with stipend. Though you could have a build-up of loans a BS degree, so I guess I can see taking out loans continuously for 12ish years while building interesting if private loans and doing BS+PhD. You might need to take out living expenses depending on the program and I can see those adding up quite a bit over the time period...but also Im not sure if using a loan for living expenses during during school should be treated different than living expenses taken out for anything else.

So many bitter people here. The cost of college is disgustingly high.

How about be happy for other people for an opportunity theyre getting instead acting bitter?

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Yeah...with 10% interest Im now seeing how they add up. Id think youd have to almost knowingly be making terrible financial decisions and living off loans...but also I know people going to a school costing 50k a year. Most of them plan on going to school afterwards and knowing their undergrad education probably an expensive school or in an expensive to live place.

Anecdata here...my MS program will literally pay you to go and give you a free degree and its hurting for applicants because not many people to go there even knowing its free. Theyd rather go 100k into debt for the same degree at a better name school...then we all end up working at the same places because nobody really cares about prestige once working. Its hard to reconcile.

My student loans:

• a large chunk was forgiven when my dad died
• paid them off after the first round of stimulus in early 2020, because that allowed me to plunk down a lot of money at once.

I got a lot of help with my loans. I certainly am not going to care that I had to pay a lot of mine with my own money(and some because of other circumstances and not my own money) while others could potentially get them paid off in full.

I don't care about punishing "fiscally irresponsible" people or people who got a "gender studies" degree. Generally, wanting to punish people like that is the wrong move I feel like, because it seems so pointless. Mixed in with that are fiscally responsible people and people who got "real" degrees who could use this help, too.

lihlih posted...

Anybody that's been in the military will tell you that the military budget is that high because of how wasteful our military is.

Go shooting and have thousands of rounds left over? Shoot all of them because if we try to return it, we'll have to count the bullets.

Go on a training mission to NTC? Throw away millions of dollars of food and water at the end because we have no idea how to calculate our water and food usage.

The fiscal year is about to be up? Spend all our money on stupid shit, so our budget doesn't get cut for next year.

Our military is stupidly wasteful that it's not funny.

100% this.

Tack on dumbass ideas like repeatedly changing battle and dress uniforms for no real discernible reason and it gives a good insight as to how they just blow through money.