this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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I chose a lower paying job in lieu of going to college and taking on debt. I'd support writing off the debt if the debtor has paid in the loan amounts worth as if it was zero interest, but making it all written off isn't right by anyone who chose the route I took.
How so?
Everyone with a hs diploma still gas to compete with everyone else when it comes to buying cars, food, housing, and everything else. The limiting factor of a house for instance is "how much is someone who wants it willing to pay?" College debt means that even if you make more, you may not have much more in available income, or a lower credit score than someone with just a highschool degree.
Essentially in a world of limited availability (which we all live in) everyone getting their debt paid off after taking it on is going to raise costs of things because it gives more people the extra income to spend on it. Inflation at the expense of everyone who isn't having their college debt cleared off.
Gotcha, so you subscribe to the mindset that someone getting something redeuces what you get.
The thing is, the richest 1% of people are so incomprehensiblly more rich than the rest of us that they could easily pay for school, housing, and food for all of us and still be incredibly rich. That's the ideal situation IMHO.
Like I said. I'm fine with eliminating the interest and I'm fine with making college free in the future for anyone who wants it. I'm not fine with giving everyone who already received a college degree getting an "out of debt free card". You don't deserve that money more than others. The rich needing to be taxed more is a separate issue.
I see. So it has nothing to do with limited availability, you just want to decide who "deserves" to be in debt. Disappointing...
Most everyone who isn't wealthy is in debt. I just don't want myself or people like me to fall further behind while you're retroactively given a free college ride.
How about we use the interest money that you've paid into college so far to give everyone who only chose to go to highschool an extra $40,000 a piece?
"Thanks, friend. That seems fair since you have a higher average earning potential."
Should we stop trying to cure cancer because it would be unfair to all the people who already died?
"Millionaires want free money" BOoOoOOO! No way!
"College alumni want free money" Yay! This is totally cool and fair!
You want me cool with wiping off $80k, give everyone else who didn't go $80k.
I don’t know what proposals you’re looking at but you might look again. That wouldn’t happen.
Of course since we’re trying it piecemeal instead of systematically, there are many versions of this. But I see prerequisites like already being on income based repayment, ten years perfect record of repaying, up to $10k. There is no wealthy person fitting criteria like this nor would it write off any significant portion of private school tuition.
All I know is that my ex is still paying off her student loans as a teacher, decades after graduating. If we were still married, we shouldn’t/wouldn’t qualify, but as a teacher with limited income she should
I'm assuming your ex has paid in more than she initially owed, right? As my first statement in here was that someone like her, I'd be fine with debt wiping. I'm not ok with someone who racked up $150k in student loans, only made $25k worth of payments, and gets the other $125k wiped.
Right, but that’s the point - every proposal I’ve read would not wipe that high end debt. Every proposal is targeted toward struggling earners. Every proposal already does what you want.
In a similar vein, my state offers free college tuition! But is it a free bonanza for the wealthy? Not at all. It covers up to three years community college for everyone or four years at a public college or university, means tested. If your parents make a decent income or you want to go to a private university, that’s great for you but you have to pay for it as before
You genuinely sound like a toddler throwing a fit right now.
You sound like you want to be the special one who gets something to make your own screw up go away. "I didn't know what an apr rate was when I took on $80k in a loan to get my studio arts degree"
Having educated and debt free youth is the only way the US is going to remain relevant in the world economy.
"Crabs in a bucket" arguments like yours really just illustrate how the US has got to the point we are at right now.
Your argument is akin to trickle down economics.
Further, I'm not against making future college free for anyone who wants it. I'm just against bailing out everyone who willingly and knowingly took on large amounts of debt as their own choice, even when there were other viable options not to.
But that's just the point, the inflation of college tuition is borderline predatory. I absolutely went to college because I "had" to, but after 4 years of further self discovery and education I realized I didn't actually want/need the education I received (the social aspects were absolutely a blast though, don't get me wrong). If I wasn't socially pressured by academic advisors and the wealthy into going to college and instead was actually explained what college entailed, I likely wouldn't have gone (at least in hindsight). Now I work in a profession completely unrelated to my 2 computer science/math degrees and will be paying for the mistake of biting the higher education pill for decades.
Sorry you made a bad choice? It was still your choice to make, and you continued making the choice of going for years.
Using your major or not, you still had the networking benefit and the college degree to help you become a more employable candidate than someone without. All other things equal, you would get hired before someone else who only has a hs diploma.
It was also still a choice you made, and really? You had two math degrees you earned but didn't have the capacity to work out college costs and interest rates before getting out of high school? As someone else who's decent at math, you really had to of known how that all worked, surely?
As someone who is decent at math and shit a social interactions I was promised "No really bro, you want to make more money, trust me bro" by persons of authority and then it turns out, no I don't really. Because yeah it turns out doing extra math homework opens more doors, but those doors are all the same and what was behind those doors was never actually explained. If the government says my brain is still developing and that I can't be trusted to vote for the president then surely that same government must admit that I can't be trusted to make informed choices about 40,000 - 200,000 dollar investments. As someone who really wishes that they took your path, I can absolutely attest that I was coerced into making a poor choice early. And while I won't try and deflect that as it ultimately was a choice I made, I was far from informed.
Cool. All the future doctors and engineers can do the same thing, right?