College education is already publicly funded in so far that the actual payments are increasingly being made by government blank checks, which has resulted in skyrocketing costs. Democrats response to this is to make the blank checks permanent and all encompassing.
The government needs to get out of higher education entirely. Make universities earn their tuition fees by providing actual value - real skills instead of content for more insufferable social media posts and protest posters - and watch how quickly all the sociology professors and "Inclusion Experts" are suddenly no longer vital public employees.
1) The famous Roosevelt Institute Study is hard to find (link is to Mother Jones website, which has another link to a brief in the R.I., which goes to another summary - no details on how they reach these conclusions), and if you are going to build an argument based on someone else's research, at least it should be easy to find and assess the arguments;
2) But most importantly, even if the progressive arguments were correct (highly doubtful), any loan forgiveness just doesn't address the underlying issue - the insane inflation of a college education in the US. There is no mention on stopping the bloating administrative bureaucracies that have been burdening the system for several decades or the increases in tuition.
This is nothing but an electoral ploy by a very unpopular President to minimise the electoral defeat that is coming his way.
I am no economist, but when somene claims that progressive economics somehow trumps basic math, I am skeptical. You cannot just wipe out debt with a stroke of a pen. If you can well, hell, let's do that with the national debt. It is just a matter of scale. When money is owed, someone pays. It is that simple. The government has no money of its own. It is our money, given by us or taken from us. We will all pay for this. Progressives blather on about "equity". In its new incarnation, equity has come to mean every one gets the same regardless of what they put in or how hard they work. There is a name for that: communism. What equity truly means and has always meant is fairness. Our feckless, senile president's plan is anything but fair. My daughter and her husband are paying off their college debt, steadily and on time. Why should they pay for the college debt of someone who took more than four years to complete college and obtained a degree with no meaningful practicality in the real world. This is one reason why we have this metastatic proliferation of HR personnel and diversity activists on the payroll of our higher institutions.
Khanna writes "In order to truly help working- and middle-class Americans, we need to cancel up to $50,000 in student loans. This would help 95 percent of borrowers and do more to improve the lives of those struggling the most."
Proving, once again, that Khanna, like almost all Democrats, is a charlatan and a liar.
The working and middle class Americans he wails about mostly did not go to college. Neither do they own much, if any, college debt. In fact, even the leftist Brookings Institute confirms that:" Likewise, education debt is concentrated in households with high levels of educational attainment. In 2019, the new Fed data show, households with graduate degrees owed 56 percent of the outstanding education debt—an increase from 49 percent in 2016. For context, only 14 percent of adults age 25 or older hold graduate degrees. The 3 percent of adults with professional and doctorate degrees hold 20 percent of the education debt. These households have median earnings more than twice as high as the overall median ($106,000 vs. $47,000 in 2019)."
So, in truth, this is little but a scam and a plea for votes from Biden's base - and from people who don't know any better. In addition, it is blatantly illegal and unconstitutional, as any law student (another likely recipient of Biden's largess) would easily understand. Biden is not a king or potentate He is, however, a thoroughly corrupt and imbecilic plague on our nation who makes Donald Trump look like a modern day paragon of Aletheia
No shocker that progressives are confused, they sing the praises of the European system (which tracks students from a very early age) while pushing for the elimination of tracking (cause its racists as higher tracks are full of white and Asian students) wherever they get control of a system in the U.S.
If this vote buying scheme is allowed to happen, it will end up being the first step of a larger scheme. Bidens got two more years in office, and in 2024 be facing a challenging 2024 re-election campaign. What's to keep him from further caving to the left and forgiving the remailing debt? Rep Jayapal finally tipped her hand yesterday, along with a couple others, that the goal was to establish free college education. Imagine the implications of that. Universities, currently increasing in expense at six times the inflation rate, having full access to federal funding.
Nobody has mentioned cost constraints on universities. Once the student loan caps were lifted and graduate education was eligible there was an explosion of useless degrees. Do you think in a real world, a for profit underwriter would ever considering approving student loan for any of the 'Victim' studies programs? Or any one of the many liberals arts degrees that will never render the graduate employable? Those indoctrination programs only exist because of federal funding.
The federal government needs to be out of the student loan business. I've posted in the past that I supported a bill that would forgive all student debt, and in return terminate all federal involvement in university funding. Both sides of the aisle would get something they really want, but also, give up something the value greatly. That would be a compromise I could live with, otherwise, the current situation will only get much worse.
Once upon a time, I would have benefitted from this "forgiveness." I couldn't even afford my own apartment while paying minimum balances, much less get out of debt. My degree is in writing, and here I was, struggling to write because just staying afloat required working two or three jobs (which in turn, incurred huge debt to the IRS every year.)
However, I had to face the fact that it was my credit card debt that made my student loan debt impossible to pay off. And since I couldn't forsake my credit rating by missing credit card payments, I took out forbearances on my student loans, in addition to an IBR, which merely increased the interest, taking a 32,000 education to over six figures. I have had to make peace with the fact that my incapacity to make student loan payments was related to other debt. Those payments, as I recall, were just $250 per month. The forbearances increased those payments to nearly $600 per month, again making the debt even more challenging to pay down.
And yet, at 59, I finally paid it all off. I'm debt free. My writing career was sacrificed to the two jobs that consume most of my time and energy.
If I had been making $125, 000 a year, there is no question that this debt wouldn't have been hard to pay off. I cannot even begin to fathom making that much per year and getting a break on student loans. It hurts my heart, I'm sorry. That is the salary of a wealthy person. It would be one thing if the cut in debt were applied to those truly in need -- but over a hundred grand a year? And now I get a tax increase to subsidize the WEALTHY? The income cap should be much lower (40 grand). That it's so high just goes to show how out of touch this administration is with the average American income.
Some say that Biden is trying to buy votes. This doesn't buy mine. Some comment that one shouldn't "begrudge" this charity -- and I don't, for those who, like me, have to struggle on $40 grand a year. But over a hundred grand? I can't wrap my brain around it, I just can't.
Biden's Student Debt Plan is terrible. Main reason why, is because we are treating symptoms while leaving underlying issue unresolved. What will happen next, in next years Universities will ramp up tuitions even higher, new students will have to take even more debt and in 5-6 years we will have even bigger issue than we have now, because all students will expect that next Democrat President will do same debt forgiveness.
This is very irresponsible fiscal policy, that will just more aggravate our national debt issues, while at same time we will have even more useless degrees that have 0 application in real world and more students will be settled with ever growing debt burden. But hay, since our universities are run as brainwash facilities for woke left, I wouldn't be surprised if this was plan all along.
Honestly, I would have not been against student loan forgiveness, if it was financed by finally abolishing tax exempt status for Universities and finally taxing those fat endowments, since they are not education institutions anymore but propaganda institution for left and thanks to endowments they have turned to hedge funds with education as side business.
"But most students recognize that to maximize their chances of having a good-paying job in our modern economy—including in the trades—they still need more than a high school degree." - Ah, and this is where Rep. Ro Khanna goes off the rails. Where do these "good-paying jobs" come from? Who are the employers that provide these jobs? Turns out they are the same folks that are being taxed into oblivion who satisfied their contractual obligations to pay off their education loans years ago. They are also the same folks that will be harangued by 87,000 additional IRS agents and submitted to expensive and time-consuming audits that distract from building a prosperous economy that allows for job creation. I paid off the student loans for both of my degrees and then went on to satisfy my contractual obligations to pay off my children's student loans. I have a "good-paying job" in the tech sector and employ 11 other people who also have a "good-paying job". And to think I was able to do all that and still honor my financial obligations without a government bailout.
Democrats have become the party of college educated coastal elites. Do their constituents know this yet?
How does Pelosi go from calling something illegal to a good idea?
I hope this act is found illegal. And then I hope we find a way to reform college education.
Universities need to purge their vast administrative state especially those related to DEI. They need to open their endowments to pay down student debt instead of investing them at private equity firms. Cancel worthless made-up degrees (Queer Studies) and transfer others (Hospitality) to trade schools. Lower admissions. No more spending lavishly on dorms and entertainment (LSU). More trade schools and community colleges, please. Start a PR campaign showing kids who choose a career requiring 2 yrs of college as the smart ones. And more exposure of what nonsense passes for education at universities these days. University leadership needs to be made to feel on its heels before they will get their heads out of their asses and reform.
I didn't read Sen. Scott's statement. I take it on faith he knew what he was talking about.
Rep. Khanna shows what's wrong with the D party, and what's wrong in this *country.* No wonder he comes from CA.
First off, I'll admit that my understanding is most-a the debt payoff will go to people making less than $75K a year. I wish I knew what *proportion* of their debt this would eliminate. In any event, if we were talking about *FREE MONEY,* I'd be all in favor. As long as the outrageous limits were scaled back. Funny how that number "$250K upper limit for *couples*" doesn't come up in the conversation.
But we are *not* talking about "free money." It's only free money in the eyes of people like Rep. Khanna. That's why he so blithely recommends paying off *five times* what was already outrageously offered to people who would like to pretend they didn't know they were signing a contract.
"Free money" from the working-class and people who *did* pay off their loans to go to *entitled* (and most likely Dem) people.
And, it's just typical. You give a Dem an inch (this disastrous policy) and they wanna take off an arm and a leg. Yeah, let's listen to Uncle Bernie. Free college!! Sky's the limit. As if colleges and universities didn't *already* charge like the sky's the limit! *Incentivize* them to charge twice what they're charging now.
I dunno which astounds me the most. The AUDACIOUSNESS. Or just the plain STUPIDITY of the idea.
But just shows where the D party and this country are heading in, unless something is done about it.
Pretty much any time politicians decide how resources should be allocated in society it spells failure. And when they create scrip to do so it's a double failure: misallocation and inflation. The final bad piece is the bad moral hazard signal. No consequence for failure to pay debts, making society even weaker than it already is.
As a person who paid on my student loans for 20 years and also used a public service forgiveness program, I think this is terrible policy. We already have loan forgiveness programs in place for people who do public service. Why wouldn't the administration urge citizens to participate? Especially when we have a huge teacher storage in this country? Yes, I know there were problems when the PSLF program matured, but I know it works! But what did I do for my part? I made sure I understood the guidelines, I asked a lot of questions, I called every six months to make sure I was on track.
This cancelation does not ask anything of the borrower. They SHOULD commit at least some labor to public service for the cancelation. But what I like least is that it does NOTHING to address the actually problem that student loans have been a cash cow for the colleges and universities, which is why tuition has skyrocketed.
This act is a shameless election year "gimme" to keep AOC and her crowd quieted down and buy votes. While this is certainly nothing new, it is the same cynical politics that has helped put us in the position we are in. I agree with both of these gentlemen that real reform of the entire system is what is needed. We will be right back here in another year or two with the graduates who drop on an overly saturated market for diversity experts and social workers. If we help anyone, how about the people who actually do something for their wages?
"At one point, I was among them, with over $100,000 in loans, having trouble making my monthly payments, and ultimately taking a year forbearance which created even more debt. I repaid my loans thanks to good fortune and opportunities,"
Yep guess what, the greatest income and wealth gap is between the young and the old and has been for 100’s of years. It’s not sex. It’s not race (though he did use his racist world view). It’s age. Older people make more and have saved more than young people.
We have a crop of young spoiled younglings which are used to mommy and daddy taking them on nice yearly vacations and now, that these kids are on their own, they realize they can’t afford it. "It’s NO FAIR. Boomers have more money them me." Their solution is to force the government to transfer the wealth of others to them.
It’s down right evil.
Don’t even get me started on what this will do to massively increase the cost of college even further, how it will reward horrible financial decisions while punishing sound decisions and increase upward pressures on inflation. Remember… it’s only transitory.
College education is already publicly funded in so far that the actual payments are increasingly being made by government blank checks, which has resulted in skyrocketing costs. Democrats response to this is to make the blank checks permanent and all encompassing.
The government needs to get out of higher education entirely. Make universities earn their tuition fees by providing actual value - real skills instead of content for more insufferable social media posts and protest posters - and watch how quickly all the sociology professors and "Inclusion Experts" are suddenly no longer vital public employees.
Couple of issues with Rep. Khanna's arguments:
1) The famous Roosevelt Institute Study is hard to find (link is to Mother Jones website, which has another link to a brief in the R.I., which goes to another summary - no details on how they reach these conclusions), and if you are going to build an argument based on someone else's research, at least it should be easy to find and assess the arguments;
2) But most importantly, even if the progressive arguments were correct (highly doubtful), any loan forgiveness just doesn't address the underlying issue - the insane inflation of a college education in the US. There is no mention on stopping the bloating administrative bureaucracies that have been burdening the system for several decades or the increases in tuition.
This is nothing but an electoral ploy by a very unpopular President to minimise the electoral defeat that is coming his way.
I am no economist, but when somene claims that progressive economics somehow trumps basic math, I am skeptical. You cannot just wipe out debt with a stroke of a pen. If you can well, hell, let's do that with the national debt. It is just a matter of scale. When money is owed, someone pays. It is that simple. The government has no money of its own. It is our money, given by us or taken from us. We will all pay for this. Progressives blather on about "equity". In its new incarnation, equity has come to mean every one gets the same regardless of what they put in or how hard they work. There is a name for that: communism. What equity truly means and has always meant is fairness. Our feckless, senile president's plan is anything but fair. My daughter and her husband are paying off their college debt, steadily and on time. Why should they pay for the college debt of someone who took more than four years to complete college and obtained a degree with no meaningful practicality in the real world. This is one reason why we have this metastatic proliferation of HR personnel and diversity activists on the payroll of our higher institutions.
Khanna writes "In order to truly help working- and middle-class Americans, we need to cancel up to $50,000 in student loans. This would help 95 percent of borrowers and do more to improve the lives of those struggling the most."
Proving, once again, that Khanna, like almost all Democrats, is a charlatan and a liar.
The working and middle class Americans he wails about mostly did not go to college. Neither do they own much, if any, college debt. In fact, even the leftist Brookings Institute confirms that:" Likewise, education debt is concentrated in households with high levels of educational attainment. In 2019, the new Fed data show, households with graduate degrees owed 56 percent of the outstanding education debt—an increase from 49 percent in 2016. For context, only 14 percent of adults age 25 or older hold graduate degrees. The 3 percent of adults with professional and doctorate degrees hold 20 percent of the education debt. These households have median earnings more than twice as high as the overall median ($106,000 vs. $47,000 in 2019)."
So, in truth, this is little but a scam and a plea for votes from Biden's base - and from people who don't know any better. In addition, it is blatantly illegal and unconstitutional, as any law student (another likely recipient of Biden's largess) would easily understand. Biden is not a king or potentate He is, however, a thoroughly corrupt and imbecilic plague on our nation who makes Donald Trump look like a modern day paragon of Aletheia
No shocker that progressives are confused, they sing the praises of the European system (which tracks students from a very early age) while pushing for the elimination of tracking (cause its racists as higher tracks are full of white and Asian students) wherever they get control of a system in the U.S.
If this vote buying scheme is allowed to happen, it will end up being the first step of a larger scheme. Bidens got two more years in office, and in 2024 be facing a challenging 2024 re-election campaign. What's to keep him from further caving to the left and forgiving the remailing debt? Rep Jayapal finally tipped her hand yesterday, along with a couple others, that the goal was to establish free college education. Imagine the implications of that. Universities, currently increasing in expense at six times the inflation rate, having full access to federal funding.
Nobody has mentioned cost constraints on universities. Once the student loan caps were lifted and graduate education was eligible there was an explosion of useless degrees. Do you think in a real world, a for profit underwriter would ever considering approving student loan for any of the 'Victim' studies programs? Or any one of the many liberals arts degrees that will never render the graduate employable? Those indoctrination programs only exist because of federal funding.
The federal government needs to be out of the student loan business. I've posted in the past that I supported a bill that would forgive all student debt, and in return terminate all federal involvement in university funding. Both sides of the aisle would get something they really want, but also, give up something the value greatly. That would be a compromise I could live with, otherwise, the current situation will only get much worse.
Once upon a time, I would have benefitted from this "forgiveness." I couldn't even afford my own apartment while paying minimum balances, much less get out of debt. My degree is in writing, and here I was, struggling to write because just staying afloat required working two or three jobs (which in turn, incurred huge debt to the IRS every year.)
However, I had to face the fact that it was my credit card debt that made my student loan debt impossible to pay off. And since I couldn't forsake my credit rating by missing credit card payments, I took out forbearances on my student loans, in addition to an IBR, which merely increased the interest, taking a 32,000 education to over six figures. I have had to make peace with the fact that my incapacity to make student loan payments was related to other debt. Those payments, as I recall, were just $250 per month. The forbearances increased those payments to nearly $600 per month, again making the debt even more challenging to pay down.
And yet, at 59, I finally paid it all off. I'm debt free. My writing career was sacrificed to the two jobs that consume most of my time and energy.
If I had been making $125, 000 a year, there is no question that this debt wouldn't have been hard to pay off. I cannot even begin to fathom making that much per year and getting a break on student loans. It hurts my heart, I'm sorry. That is the salary of a wealthy person. It would be one thing if the cut in debt were applied to those truly in need -- but over a hundred grand a year? And now I get a tax increase to subsidize the WEALTHY? The income cap should be much lower (40 grand). That it's so high just goes to show how out of touch this administration is with the average American income.
Some say that Biden is trying to buy votes. This doesn't buy mine. Some comment that one shouldn't "begrudge" this charity -- and I don't, for those who, like me, have to struggle on $40 grand a year. But over a hundred grand? I can't wrap my brain around it, I just can't.
Biden's Student Debt Plan is terrible. Main reason why, is because we are treating symptoms while leaving underlying issue unresolved. What will happen next, in next years Universities will ramp up tuitions even higher, new students will have to take even more debt and in 5-6 years we will have even bigger issue than we have now, because all students will expect that next Democrat President will do same debt forgiveness.
This is very irresponsible fiscal policy, that will just more aggravate our national debt issues, while at same time we will have even more useless degrees that have 0 application in real world and more students will be settled with ever growing debt burden. But hay, since our universities are run as brainwash facilities for woke left, I wouldn't be surprised if this was plan all along.
Honestly, I would have not been against student loan forgiveness, if it was financed by finally abolishing tax exempt status for Universities and finally taxing those fat endowments, since they are not education institutions anymore but propaganda institution for left and thanks to endowments they have turned to hedge funds with education as side business.
"But most students recognize that to maximize their chances of having a good-paying job in our modern economy—including in the trades—they still need more than a high school degree." - Ah, and this is where Rep. Ro Khanna goes off the rails. Where do these "good-paying jobs" come from? Who are the employers that provide these jobs? Turns out they are the same folks that are being taxed into oblivion who satisfied their contractual obligations to pay off their education loans years ago. They are also the same folks that will be harangued by 87,000 additional IRS agents and submitted to expensive and time-consuming audits that distract from building a prosperous economy that allows for job creation. I paid off the student loans for both of my degrees and then went on to satisfy my contractual obligations to pay off my children's student loans. I have a "good-paying job" in the tech sector and employ 11 other people who also have a "good-paying job". And to think I was able to do all that and still honor my financial obligations without a government bailout.
Democrats have become the party of college educated coastal elites. Do their constituents know this yet?
How does Pelosi go from calling something illegal to a good idea?
I hope this act is found illegal. And then I hope we find a way to reform college education.
Universities need to purge their vast administrative state especially those related to DEI. They need to open their endowments to pay down student debt instead of investing them at private equity firms. Cancel worthless made-up degrees (Queer Studies) and transfer others (Hospitality) to trade schools. Lower admissions. No more spending lavishly on dorms and entertainment (LSU). More trade schools and community colleges, please. Start a PR campaign showing kids who choose a career requiring 2 yrs of college as the smart ones. And more exposure of what nonsense passes for education at universities these days. University leadership needs to be made to feel on its heels before they will get their heads out of their asses and reform.
I didn't read Sen. Scott's statement. I take it on faith he knew what he was talking about.
Rep. Khanna shows what's wrong with the D party, and what's wrong in this *country.* No wonder he comes from CA.
First off, I'll admit that my understanding is most-a the debt payoff will go to people making less than $75K a year. I wish I knew what *proportion* of their debt this would eliminate. In any event, if we were talking about *FREE MONEY,* I'd be all in favor. As long as the outrageous limits were scaled back. Funny how that number "$250K upper limit for *couples*" doesn't come up in the conversation.
But we are *not* talking about "free money." It's only free money in the eyes of people like Rep. Khanna. That's why he so blithely recommends paying off *five times* what was already outrageously offered to people who would like to pretend they didn't know they were signing a contract.
"Free money" from the working-class and people who *did* pay off their loans to go to *entitled* (and most likely Dem) people.
And, it's just typical. You give a Dem an inch (this disastrous policy) and they wanna take off an arm and a leg. Yeah, let's listen to Uncle Bernie. Free college!! Sky's the limit. As if colleges and universities didn't *already* charge like the sky's the limit! *Incentivize* them to charge twice what they're charging now.
I dunno which astounds me the most. The AUDACIOUSNESS. Or just the plain STUPIDITY of the idea.
But just shows where the D party and this country are heading in, unless something is done about it.
Horrible horrible policy.
Pretty much any time politicians decide how resources should be allocated in society it spells failure. And when they create scrip to do so it's a double failure: misallocation and inflation. The final bad piece is the bad moral hazard signal. No consequence for failure to pay debts, making society even weaker than it already is.
We are raising a generation of deadbeats who will expect the taxpayer to bail them out of every bad decision they make.
As a person who paid on my student loans for 20 years and also used a public service forgiveness program, I think this is terrible policy. We already have loan forgiveness programs in place for people who do public service. Why wouldn't the administration urge citizens to participate? Especially when we have a huge teacher storage in this country? Yes, I know there were problems when the PSLF program matured, but I know it works! But what did I do for my part? I made sure I understood the guidelines, I asked a lot of questions, I called every six months to make sure I was on track.
This cancelation does not ask anything of the borrower. They SHOULD commit at least some labor to public service for the cancelation. But what I like least is that it does NOTHING to address the actually problem that student loans have been a cash cow for the colleges and universities, which is why tuition has skyrocketed.
This act is a shameless election year "gimme" to keep AOC and her crowd quieted down and buy votes. While this is certainly nothing new, it is the same cynical politics that has helped put us in the position we are in. I agree with both of these gentlemen that real reform of the entire system is what is needed. We will be right back here in another year or two with the graduates who drop on an overly saturated market for diversity experts and social workers. If we help anyone, how about the people who actually do something for their wages?
Ro Khanna is seriously out of touch with reality.
"At one point, I was among them, with over $100,000 in loans, having trouble making my monthly payments, and ultimately taking a year forbearance which created even more debt. I repaid my loans thanks to good fortune and opportunities,"
Yep guess what, the greatest income and wealth gap is between the young and the old and has been for 100’s of years. It’s not sex. It’s not race (though he did use his racist world view). It’s age. Older people make more and have saved more than young people.
We have a crop of young spoiled younglings which are used to mommy and daddy taking them on nice yearly vacations and now, that these kids are on their own, they realize they can’t afford it. "It’s NO FAIR. Boomers have more money them me." Their solution is to force the government to transfer the wealth of others to them.
It’s down right evil.
Don’t even get me started on what this will do to massively increase the cost of college even further, how it will reward horrible financial decisions while punishing sound decisions and increase upward pressures on inflation. Remember… it’s only transitory.