Yeah, I'm so privileged that I took on debt to go to university for a difficult subject and had to work and make lifestyle sacrifices to pay it back rather than voting for someone to give me a free ride.
The idea that people deserve this and it's not fair to those who already made it through seems like a purely emotional reaction, and an extremely reductionist one, considering the dramatic complexity of higher education's actual value and how much risk is "worth it".
It's absolutely possible to pick an economically viable major, go to community college, go to a trade school... It's also absolutely viable to take on loans and pay them off through hard work. How important is that degree to you? If it's very important then expect to sacrifice, almost everyone else is.
I know so many peers with degrees of varying quality that spend their money on international travel, eating out almost every night, living in the most expensive cities in the world yet they complain about their student debt constantly. Now they're presenting themselves as true victims and acting like anyone who doesn't support this bail out is a hateful wretch.
I'm sorry but I worked hard and made good decisions and I absolutely expect the same level of competence from my fellow citizens. People make dumb decisions all of the time and you have to learn the hard way that your life is your's and there's no fairy godmother that will come waive your poor choices away.
MAGA, amirite?
I do want things to be different though, and it starts with people taking on a lot more personal responsibility. Our whole society needs to reintegrate that concept into who we are and how we're raised. A lot of people are very quick to blame others for their mistakes and look to them to fix their problems.
It is, however that may be, fundamental to the modern conservative position on a wide range of issues.
> Otherwise, why not ignore anything that can be placed under the umbrella of personal responsibility?
That is, indeed, the point of the argument. (It is, of course, less consistently applied to corporations and the investor class because “job creators”, but still...)
> The idea that people deserve this and it's not fair to those who already made it through seems like a purely emotional reaction,
It's not, it's cynically manipulating emotional reactions. The motivation is more coldly considered defense of the privileged position of the already successful than any kind of emotional reaction.