Student Loan Forgiveness

[Bunion 2020]

Kill the interest and forgive anything above the original principal.

Means test those who wish to apply for loan forgiveness.

PPP was a massive giveaway mainly going to people who didn't need the $$$.

[Mustonen]

Most four year degrees are a joke. Infact, our entire culture surrounding education is a joke. We all learn very little in school, and learn it all on the job (for the most part).

All of my student loan debt is from my second run through school while working full time (with two young children at home). It gave me the opportunity to apply coursework directly to my every day and I found that structure really valuable, even if it was exhausting.

[XXX-er]

kid #2 went the coop route which paid good $$$$ for the working stints so by the time he finished a 4 program in 5 yrs he had made enough $ working to pay for almost all the uni, he had work experience and every company he cooped at made a job offer while most of his buddies I met at convocation were looking for jobs

[bearcub69]

I have about 15k in student debt.. not sure how much of that is private and how much is federal..

All of my debt is from my first year of college, I went to school out of state. It was a great time in my life, learned a lot (mostly outside of class haha), and met some great people I'm still in contact with to this day. I moved back home for the remainder of my college career because I'd much rather be in 15k of debt rather than 50k.. I received a better education attending a smaller school back home as opposed to a larger school in another state.. smaller class sizes, professors who want to teach and not just work at "a nice university"..

I was told in high school (and still told by my grandfather to this day haha), that you will be much more comfortable financially if you go to school. The majority of my friends are not using their college degrees.. the minority who are have more than a bachelors..
I'm not saying college is a scam, but if you don't have any idea what you want to do in life and can't go to college without taking on loads of debt, I don't think it is worth it for everyone..

I am not expecting anyone or any institution to pay off my debt, but I wouldn't necessarily be upset if my debt was erased either. I'm not an economist, but I do understand the economy is fucked at the moment.. I would much rather be paying off a loan for a vehicle or a property than student loans, and I would assume that would stimulate the economy more than paying back the government who can't spend money in an efficient manner.. but I have no fucking clue.

As someone pointed out earlier, most people taking on student debt are teenagers who have heard "college is your best change to succeed" for most of their lives. As soon as I got "out into the real world", I realized that was some BS and moved back home to go to school debt free..

[schuss]

Eh, it's a net benefit to the economy and more efficient economically than trump or W tax cuts or oil subsidies.
Fair? Life isn't fair.
I have zero debt left but won't be salty.

If we actually want to pretend we're a meritocracy, we need to have a base level that means you don't starve to death homeless if you fail at something. We'd have a lot better business culture if all the startups weren't trust fund kids.

[MontuckyFried]

Kill the interest and forgive anything above the original principal.

This seems like the most sensible plan.


Sent from my Pixel 3 using TGR Forums mobile app

[SkiLyft]

I like the kill the interest idea seems like a good way to actually encourage people to pay on it. The Daily did a piece on this last week. At this point you likely have to give the masses SOMETHING if you actually expect anyone to pay on this moving forward.

I’m on the side of the argument that if you don’t fix the education institutions charging STUPID amounts of money for higher education there is no point to erase debt as the clock just starts over.

Someone mentioned bankruptcy as a way to deal with student loan sharks? That doesn’t work. Student loan debt follows you for eternity!


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[SumJongGuy]

The military prefers 18-25 year olds because they generally have an untrained aerobic heart rate around 160. They can sustain a pretty physically grueling profession with less overuse injuries than 28-35 year olds. Additionally they generally have less family obligations and non careerists can still transition to a full civilian career after service. If we could park 28-35 year old maturity and decision making into those 18-26 year old bodies we would in a heartbeat, and have a more lethal fighting force for it. Please don’t make up dumb statements.
.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...58244018824498

It's basically easer to get teenagers to storm the beach at Normandy without worrying about their own mortality so much than it would be to get 30 year olds to do that. Same holds true for convincing them to borrow a bunch of money at high interest for immediate satisfaction but a huge cost 5- 10 years down the road.

[J. Barron DeJong]

I like the kill the interest idea seems like a good way to actually encourage people to pay on it. The Daily did a piece on this last week. At this point you likely have to give the masses SOMETHING if you actually expect anyone to pay on this moving forward.

I’m on the side of the argument that if you don’t fix the education institutions charging STUPID amounts of money for higher education there is no point to erase debt as the clock just starts over.

Someone mentioned bankruptcy as a way to deal with student loan sharks? That doesn’t work. Student loan debt follows you for eternity!


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

Right, there needs to be some exceptions to no bankruptcy.

But then you need to figure out how to avoid abuse of the bankruptcy option. Education isn’t like money or property where it can be taken away from you, so the incentive would be to go into debt to get your degree, and then claim bankruptcy immediately upon graduating when your net worth is negative and you have no property to confiscate.

[LongShortLong]

Someone mentioned bankruptcy as a way to deal with student loan sharks? That doesn’t work. Student loan debt follows you for eternity!

I think I phrased it as fix bankruptcy. Student loan debt should be dismissed/modified similar to any other loan.

[muted reborn]

I had a friend in college who used his student loans to buy a new dirt bike and a season pass at Bridger Bowl every year, in addition to his tuition. This was the 90s so perhaps since then they made all loan expenses accountable - I don't know - so is it possible we are also wiping out debt for student debt that had nothing to do with school costs?

[LongShortLong]

Right, there needs to be some exceptions to no bankruptcy.

But then you need to figure out how to avoid abuse of the bankruptcy option. Education isn’t like money or property where it can be taken away from you, so the incentive would be to go into debt to get your degree, and then claim bankruptcy immediately upon graduating when your net worth is negative and you have no property to confiscate.

Businesses do this all the time. Run the business into the ground, and sorry lender/investor, here's a worthless failed business.

This might make it harder to get a student loan. And it might make students choose degrees more carefully. And adjust the study/party balance. And put pressure on the colleges to deliver value.

[Stuntmonkey]

Kill the interest and forgive anything above the original principal.

Means test those who wish to apply for loan forgiveness.

PPP was a massive giveaway mainly going to people who didn't need the $$$.

100% on board with this. And that's coming from someone with a 4 year from Texas and a Masters from Canada.

[Name Redacted]

Wife and I had more student debt than most people. 10x the national average. It was daunting. We paid it off early. I wonder if we will see a check.

I have to say, I am against forgiveness, but a pause on interest seems fair. Also, every single college student should have to take a class once a year that discusses the basics of personal finance. If they fail the final exam, they are cut off from student loans funds until they can pass.

[J. Barron DeJong]

Businesses do this all the time. Run the business into the ground, and sorry lender/investor, here's a worthless failed business.

This might make it harder to get a student loan. And it might make students choose degrees more carefully. And adjust the study/party balance. And put pressure on the colleges to deliver value.

Most business loans would be backed by some collateral, which would be repossessed if a loan payment was missed, right?

Like, I would think it’s very rare for a business to take out a loan and then immediately default on it, because you’d just lose whatever cash you have or lose whatever you spent it on.

With a student loan, there isn’t any way to repossess the goods the money was spent on. It’s as if a business could claim bankruptcy, but keep all their property, cash, etc. and just wipe out their debts.

I believe something needs to change in how student loans are handled in bankruptcy, but it really is different than a typical business loan (or mortgage, or car loan, or line of credit, etc.)

[Bunion 2020]

I had a friend in college who used his student loans to buy a new dirt bike and a season pass at Bridger Bowl every year, in addition to his tuition. This was the 90s so perhaps since then they made all loan expenses accountable - I don't know - so is it possible we are also wiping out debt for student debt that had nothing to do with school costs?

^^^ Buddy of mine has been ducking his loans since the late 70s when he graduated. Never used his degree and was a cheap bastard but he had the money to make his payments, he just chose not to. I don't suppose the Gubamint can garnish your SS checks can they?

Turns out, they can.

Student loans won’t affect your Social Security so long as you keep your federal loans out of default and in good standing. But even if that happens, your retirement and disability benefits cannot be reduced below $750 a month or $9,000 a year. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) can never be offset to repay student loan debt.

Similarly, your benefit payments are safe if you owe private student loans or are a cosigner. Private lenders can’t garnish any type of Social Security payment. But they can sue you if you fall behind on your bills. If that happens and a court order is entered against you, then the creditor may be able to take money from your bank account and put a lien on your home.

Note: Your bank has to review your account history for two months before getting the garnishment order. If your Social Security benefits have been directly deposited into your account within that two months, the bank must protect the funds up to the total of the direct deposits.

[dan_pdx]

I don't have strong feelings on forgiving student debt other than to comment that it creates moral hazard for future students. Why make prudent decisions if they can believe that their loans will be canceled? So I'd say anything we do needs to be accompanied by some kind of reform of college costs; free 2-year college accompanied by some kind of mandatory financial education might be a good start.

We also need to think about how we avoid creating a situation where only the wealthy can go get fancy degrees from private schools, thereby perpetuating income inequality, and further reducing social mobility in the US. We already have less social mobility than any other developed nation, let's not make things worse than they already are.

[Mustonen]

I think it might be helpful if we thought of personal finances a little more like business finances. When you pursue education you are adding to the marketable skills section of your balance sheet. The other side of that transaction is time and money, unrealized income would make up the difference over in equity (or something, I didn’t actually write it out so there might be a better way to build the analogy).

Individuals would over and under perform, but that would force some rational determination of what you’re actually doing when you make these decisions and add some objectivity to decisions to take out loans. It can make all the sense in the world to fall deep into debt, but only if you’re building a healthy balance sheet and managing risk.

And I don’t know how student loans work if they can be discharged in bankruptcy. Nobody is giving any 18 year old a $20k 20 year signature loan for a single digit interest rate. Those numbers don’t work.

[XavierD]

I had a friend in college who used his student loans to buy a new dirt bike and a season pass at Bridger Bowl every year, in addition to his tuition. This was the 90s so perhaps since then they made all loan expenses accountable - I don't know - so is it possible we are also wiping out debt for student debt that had nothing to do with school costs?

I don’t know about dirt bikes and season passes but student loans are used to prop up a pretty high standard of living among students. A surprisingly high number of students on loans manage to live in pretty nice apartments, eat out significantly, and take spring break trips and summers abroad without internship/international study.

[dunfree]

I don’t know about dirt bikes and season passes but student loans are used to prop up a pretty high standard of living among students. A surprisingly high number of students on loans manage to live in pretty nice apartments, eat out significantly, and take spring break trips and summers abroad without internship/international study.

given max loans you can take out in an enrollment period is cost of attendance (tuition+ room board+ fees+ some misc) this isn’t an accurate representation. It doesn’t go that far.

the students I saw living high were, prior to Covid, international students. Who also pay $$$$

[XavierD]

given max loans you can take out in an enrollment period is cost of attendance (tuition+ room board+ fees+ some misc) this isn’t an accurate representation bordering on deliberate misrepresentation.

Couple things. Room and board has skyrocketed over the last 20 years as schools have torn down the old dorms and cafeteria dinning halls to build single occupancy apartment style housing and food court and market style food services.

Using your part time job income to fund expensive extra curricular experiences while covering your entire education expense with loans is in essence paying for those experiences with your loan funds.

[bearcub69]

I had a friend in college who used his student loans to buy a new dirt bike and a season pass at Bridger Bowl every year, in addition to his tuition. This was the 90s so perhaps since then they made all loan expenses accountable - I don't know - so is it possible we are also wiping out debt for student debt that had nothing to do with school costs?

I know a girl who has college paid for by mommy and daddy so she went and bought a new dirt bike and mtn bike under a student loan.. this was within the last year or so..

However, I am not sure if her loan is private or government.. most likely private.
Only government interest should be cancelled IMO

[Cisco Kid]

After paying the tuition with my loan, I used what was left for beer.

[summit]

Watch they'll set the threshold for getting repayment based on 2021 AGI in a way that fucks all the Healthcare workers who worked overtime/travel due to the pandemic

[XXX-er]

I had some tennants who bought a truck with the student loan money, it was a used cheap truck and they did need wheels

I've seen future MD's live pretty well cuz they know they will be making 6 figures sooner than later