Student Loan Debt Forgiveness 10-20k

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Futuredegree, Aug 24, 2022.

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  1. SweetSecret

    SweetSecret Well-Known Member

    :emoji_joy: Truer words were never spoken.
     
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Thanks, but I was griping.

    I missed the Vietnam Era bill by 9 months. When they brought out the Montgomery bill they didn’t make it retro-active. Then, when the military really shrunk in the early-to-mid-‘90s, each service got to decide which of its “early outs” would be eligible for it. In the Air Force, the early separation packages (VSI—an annuity—and SSB—a lump sum payment) also included the Montgomery Bill. But the early retirements (like me) did not. Finally, after I’d been retired for a few months, they gave it to everyone retroactively. (Except retirees, of course.)

    Ironically, I was in education and training for a large part of my career. I processed hundreds of applications for GI Bill education benefits, but never got them myself.

    But yeah, to your point, I did get a lot out of my service, and overall I don’t have any regrets (like having been paid a retirement check and full medical benefits since I was 36). I just think its funny that I kept missing the GI Bill!
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Perhaps both are true.
     
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  4. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    Fascinating statement from Dr. Ben Merkle and New Saint Andrews College on Biden's debt relief scheme. See here and here.
     
  5. Acolyte

    Acolyte Active Member

    I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I feel like people should stick to their commitments - I have about $30K in total debt from ALL of my schooling - undergrad and graduate school. Not terrible in the grand scheme of things. I was going to have it paid off by the time I was 72. I've read stories about people that have 6-figure debt for a simple Bachelor's degree or $30K debt for an Associate's degree (and many of those from for-profit schools - which I really have NO problem with as a rule) - and yes, those folks made a lot of bad choices. That's why I'm glad the debt forgiveness is being structured the way it is - the $10K will make a world of difference to those that chose lesser expensive routes like community college, state schools, and were able to reduce their debt load through internal scholarships, etc. But it will make much less of a difference to those that racked up $100K for that B.A. at a fancy school.

    As far as whether this is "right or wrong" for the government to do - I tend think in pragmatic terms. There are some people that really believe the government should NEVER be handing out money like this and they disapproved of bailing out GM, Wall Street, Citibank, Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae and all the other times the government decided that deeply held "principles" were no match for the real-world harm that would be done - especially the collateral damage to a lot average citizens - if they didn't intervene. Some folks stuck to their guns with the PPP loan program and either refused to take the money or they were openly critical of the program in general. I can appreciate all of that - if those folks were consistent in their outrage about all of those things. But that's not what I see being played out. I see the same thing that always plays out when ANY intervention goes directly to help working people. People wring their hands and complain that somehow it will encourage people to be lazy, to become dependent on the government....but I don't remember the same level of outrage by these people about the Bear Stearns CEO that walked away with $300 million dollars after overseeing the shady dealings that led to the firm's collapse. Or several other bailout recipients that walked away with millions upon millions of "golden parachutes" during these crises. I also turn to the revelations that billions. BILLIONS of dollars were used in Iraq and Afghanistan to pay warlords, informants, and for other UNACCOUNTED FOR uses in the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns - there is no way to know where or how that money was spent.

    In light of all of that, I don't feel too outraged about the government forgiving $10K per borrower for people that put in the work to better their chances in life. We could argue that all of these situations are inherently different, and so comparing one "cash infusion" intervention to another isn't truly an apples-to-apples comparison, and that's a fair point - but one that is murky enough for me to accept that these things are fungible - if we are going to spend a couple hundred million bucks, why not do it on working people?

    I've thought that one way they could have done this is just to offer to make all of the outstanding debt consolidatable at 0% interest or at 0.5% interest - some minimal interest point. The interest saved over the course of the loans would have ranged proportionally per borrower and may have ended up saving some folks $10K while preserving cash flow into the government. Then they could offer incentives - pay on time for 5 years and get a $1K bonus reduction. Pay on time for another 3 years and get another $1K reduction, etc. I guess something to keep the borrower's "skin in the game" so to speak. But I digress - for maybe the first time in my life, aid from my government is going to directly help ME and I'm going to take it. Theoretically it could be good for everyone in the long run. If student loans are preventing people from buying houses, or starting businesses then there are better tax revenues to be had further down the line by helping people break out of a debt burden sooner rather than later. But that starts to sound like "trickle up economics" at some level, lol.

    .02
     
  6. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    People get relief from the government all the time. Lose your job? Unemployment. Can't pay your debts? Bankruptcy. Need help with food? It's there. Etcetera.

    Oil subsidies. Farm subsidies. Small business loans. Tax breaks for certain things and not others. The government picks winners and losers constantly. And no program has ever been put into effect that didn't exclude people, or that people missed out on.

    But this one? This one lights people up. Why? It has nothing to do with accountability or responsibility. As I said, people seek and get relief from they government in myriad ways. But this? Why such an emotional reaction?

    One of the reasons is political. The two major parties show a stark difference in education levels, and I believe there is a lot of simmering resentment there.

    Another is the feeling that someone is getting something that (a) you're not and (b) they don't "deserve."

    The United States likes to think it is a classless society, but that's not entirely true. No, we don't have a strict caste system, or even a less-blatant-but-still-very-real structure like in the UK. We do have the availability of upward mobility. But as it's been drummed into our heads all of our lives, this is done by getting a good education. So, now we want to give these educated elites a windfall?

    When the wealthiest of us got a tax break in 2017, we largely tolerated it because the recipients were abstractions to most of us. But this is very real; something almost any of us could have received--but didn't. The resentment is huge. I think it is unfair, but it is nonetheless real and palpable.

    I would have done it differently. I would have given a rebate of some of the interest paid on these loans. The more you've paid, the more you got back. Student loan interest rates were outrageously high for decades. I would have applied that rebate to existing balances and, if paid off, sent a rebate check in cash to the borrower. A rebate. Not "forgiveness." A simple statement from the government saying, "We over-charged you for interest on your student loans, so here's some of that back." Done.
     
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  7. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    Oh brother. Instead of addressing the actual argumentation raised, you've psychologized the other side in order to perpetuate a canard.
     
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  8. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Nonsense. That's a stupid word salad.
     
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  9. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    No, that statement had a lot of sense. Don't confuse the two.

    That is the sort of lazy comment I would expect from a child and not an adult.
     
  10. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Most Americans do not pay a federal income tax. Any increases in taxes will fall disproportionately on college graduates because they tend to earn more and, therefore, will end up paying a federal income tax. Also, the tax burden will primarily fall on Millennials since the entire generation is well into adulthood and nowhere near retirement age. This is also the generation that has the highest percentage of college graduates. This is probably also the generation that will receive the most forgiveness since most haven't had 20+ years yet to pay off their loans; likely half of the generation isn't even 10 years out of college. To say that student loan forgiveness for high earners will end up being paid for by low-earning, non-college-graduates is inaccurate. They don't pay federal income taxes to begin with. As a matter of fact, many of them receive tax refunds that exceed the taxes that were taken out of their checks, and these refunds are being funded by higher earners who do pay federal income taxes.

    So, is this possibly a redistribution of debt for higher-earning college graduates? Maybe.
     
  11. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    What does the student loan forgiveness plan have to do with colleges and universities accepting federal dollars? They already have the option to not accept federal dollars, and many of these traditional schools that don't are still expensive, and their students end up taking out private loans. Additionally, there are many conservative colleges that do accept federal dollars and have done so for decades. Finally, most of our historic universities are secular. A lot of these religious, conservative colleges were founded in the 20th Century. He was spouting off a lot of nonsense.

    New Saint Andrews College charges $15,700 per year just for tuition. If you're a part-time student, tuition is $655 per credit hour. Unless you graduated from Veritas or Logos Online School, their scholarship amounts are pitiful. That's probably why they direct their students to private student loans.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2022
  12. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    College enrollment has increased exponentially in the last thirty years (see here) and congress has increased the per annum undergraduate loan limit by over 500%. Inflation from 1970s-present day cannot account for that increase. Unsurprisingly, colleges have increased their tuition costs exponentially and benefit from the pontiff's loan forgiveness scheme by 1.) having the government write off a significant portion of their costs on the backend, 2.) having a reduced number of defaults on record, 3.) and by having extraordinarily expensive tuition rates endorsed by implication.

    Loans, as such, aren't the issue.

    Yes, we can only hope for more.

    Do you mean like Harvard or Yale or Princeton? All of these schools and countless more were started by conservative Christians and became secular over time as the acids of modernity had their effect.

    The average private college tuition for a full-time undergraduate student in the US is about $40k per annum. $16k is less than $40k. By a lot.
     
  13. Asymptote

    Asymptote Active Member

    Directly, maybe not. But in cost of living through paying higher prices to those who do, they may.
     
  14. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I don't know about "most", anyway.
     
  15. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Have you accomplished anything in this field? I see you've written several books about mythology and you seem to have an impressive place in that field. And I see your name at the top of what some might call a degree mill. (Not me, of course.)
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2022
  16. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

  17. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Yet, the average debt at private non-profit colleges is lower than public universities and for-profit colleges for two reasons: wealthier students whose families can afford to pay out of pocket and more institutional aid. I haven't seen that NSA offers much institutional aid. They had 155 students in 2010 and 221 students in 2020, so they're probably relying on Veritas and Logos students to enroll.

    The tuition at public colleges and universities exploded when states started cutting funding and giving colleges permission to increase tuition.
     
  18. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

  19. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Enough with the personal attacks. Discuss the topic here or snipe elsewhere.
     
  20. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    To whom is this directed?
     
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