Don’t Forgive Student Debt

Making their monthly payments is a major drag for millions in their 20s and 30s, but federal forgiveness is the stupidest way to address this problem.

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For many of the 43 million Americans weighed down by student loan debt, making their monthly payments is a major drag on their lives. About a third of undergraduates going for a bachelor's degree are either dropping out or taking more than six years to graduate, which means that lots of people carrying student debt don't even have a degree. Others are finding that what they learned in college doesn't even help them get a job.

Federal student loan debt hit $1.6  trillion last year. This is a major problem for people in their 20s and 30s. But the federal government simply wiping their debt clean is just about the stupidest way to address it.  

Written by Emma Camp; edited by Danielle Thompson; sound by Ian Keyser

Photo Credits: Chris Fitzgerald / Candidate Photos/Newscom/Newscom; KEVIN DIETSCH/UPI/Newscom; JOHN ANGELILLO/UPI/Newscom; CNP/AdMedia/SIPA/Newscom; Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call/Newscom

Music Credits: "Game Over" by 2050 via Artlist; "Dusk till Dawn" by Mintz via Artlist; "Center of Gravity" by Phutureprimitive via Artlist; "The Dutchman" by Mintz via Artlist

[ReasonTV]

Correction: The original version of this video had a mislabeled chart: $516 million was mislabeled $5.16 million. We've corrected the mistake by blurring out the figure in the YouTube editor. (It will take a couple of hours to process though.)

[BlaineNay]

All student loans should come only from college endowment funds. Only then will colleges price their courses/degrees fairly. They would take meaningful steps to improve the graduation rate so borrowers can afford to pay the debt. Most important of all, they'd stop offering worthless "pity-me" courses and degrees.

[Razaiel]

Two things would really help.

#1) Stop subsidizing higher education by having the taxpayers on the hook for the loans. Instead, have financial institutions or the universities themselves bear that risk.

#2) Allow student loans to be discharged via bankruptcy like any other debt.

[randoroo]

Wife is a physician. We worked hard and made sacrifices to pay off her loans. Stuff that isn't even that big a deal like not going on vactions, not buying new cars, buying less house than we could afford, all so we could shovel money towards satisfying her loan obligations. She has multiple colleagues that didn't make the same sacrifices, took the vacations, bought the lake house. This year many of them have started receiving > 200k in student loan forgiveness, tax free, via the PSLF. Not only have they been openly celebrating offloading their financial obligations on to taxpayers and future generations, they also have shamed her while at work for paying down her loans. It's a major slap in the face that our leaders are rewarding the best off in society, people in the >95% of income earners, while punishing people that make sacrifices in order to make responsible financial decisions and honor their financial obligations.

[jrhoadley]

The program that Purdue University is doing, where the students attend for free in return for a fixed percentage of graduate earnings for a fixed period of time does a much better job of aligning incentives between the institution and the student. Doesn't do anything to fix the current mess, unfortunately.

[koshakuguides]

College is so overpriced it's basically a big giant scam at this point. I used financial aid to pay for college because I qualify, but I will never spend a single dime or get into debt for college. I'd be better off just finding a decent paying job, getting work experience and working my way up.

[AaronBurr]

Sounds like a great idea! With the best of intentions! What could possibly go wrong?

[DogapillarLyfe]

"Focus on the expensive colleges themselves" that's been my argument for years

[bryanboone]

I have about 50k of student debt. I don't want the government to tax the citizens to pay for my debts. I want the government to get out of the way and stop dstryng the economy so I can have a stable job so I can pay off my debts.

[theondono]

Forgiving student debt is one of the less progressive plans I can think of. It literally takes money from poor working class people and uses it to bail out middle class (or future middle class) people.

[BastiatC]

Counterargument: Student loan debt is a product of a state sanctioned fraud that targeted children. It should be forgiven on that basis alone.

[ZPositive]

Even the newspeak phrase "student debt forgiveness" offends me. Let's call it "forcing the productive to pay for others' poor financial decisions".

[Joenzinator]

My #1 choice would be to abolish the federal student loan program, and make banks liable for issuing bad loans.

My #2 choice would be to make federal student loans interest free. If the program is intended to help people, crippling them with interest payments is not helping.

[JohnD-JohnD]

You forgot the people who didn't go to a 4 year college because they didn't want to take on that debt. Would they be able to go to a 4 year college for free?
It makes no sense.
Be responsible for the debt you got yourself into. I do not want to pay for YOUR schooling.

[Strideo]

I've been saying for a long time that just wiping out student loan debt is incredibly stupid because it doesn't address the underlying issues that are making the costs of education out pace the rate of inflation.

[TECHN]

If going to college doesn't help find jobs, then the solution to college loan debt is stop going to college.

[billybob]

A service provided by a publicly funded, privately owned, operated & profiting institution is advertised to us in the classroom. From our formative years before our cognitive faculties & critical thinking develop. In an institution truancy officers will hunt us down and drag us to if we try to avoid going to. Trusted authority figures who will punish us for contradicting them encourage us to take out more money than most of us will understand the value of while we're too young to get any other kind of loan. We're told what we choose to study is more about what interests us than what is actually in demand. Just start by getting into college and then figure the rest out later. "Find yourself" to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per year. "The degree will get you a much better job than you could ever get without one, and you'll pay it off in no time." College and university has been sold as something it simply isn't.

Any debt forgiveness needs to come with a formal apology, an end to this massive campaign of fraud & grooming, and a refund on all these degrees that are not worth the price of admission. I would happily pay the price tag if I knew it went towards the marxist infiltrated faculties that have been churning out debt-laden bitter alienated people with inflated egos and no practical skills beyond finding creative ways to blame unfashionable minorities for all the world's problems were finally held accountable for failing their students in the worst way (something I suspect was deliberate in an attempt to build a large enough population base desperate enough to get their dumbass revolution off the ground).

[sooke]

Forgiving student debt sets a terrible precedent. From that day forward, you would be crazy not to take money from the government. Chances are, you wouldn't have to pay it back.

[Matt-gfgd]

I'm not entirely against some amount of loan forgiveness.... If they stopped issuing loans for college first. Then we can have an actual discussion about fixing the root cause before just treating the mess it's made.

[badass]

The "education" system produces useless people in 12-20 years... and wastes your youth. You stop being young at the age of 23-25.

If kids weren't neglected to the "education" system, but instead specialized in one engineering field, or one trade, or law, or commerce after elementary school(starting at age 10-11), by the time they are 14-18 they'd be a highly skilled and knowledgeable experts in the field/sub-field they were specialized in and would be able to work on a medium position.

I have many friends, acquaintances and people I know that did just that and many started working an engineering job during high school and many now earn 3-5x times the average salary at 21-23 years old.

Edit: Not to mention that school and university diplomas should NOT be mandatory to get a job, because there is no real world knowledge and skill behind them.