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Comment by fortran77 | Hacker News Reader

I'm completely against forgiving student loans. I want to solve the problem, which means no more Government backed student loans. (I'm all for the Government building more low-cost public Universities, though.)

But if they are going to forgive them, certainly the students who prided themselves on being the best and the brightest should have known better! Therefore, anyone in the top 10% of SAT scores or at the top 100 schools should not be eligible for discharge. If you're smart enough to get into Chicago or Harvard, you're smart enough to know how loans work.

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I would be angry because I lived in the cheapest apartment I could and biked as much as I could until I paid everything off. Had I been less responsible, I would get more money under debt forgiveness. The incentives are inverted. I'm all for wealth redistribution but messing with incentives is shown over and over again to be a bad idea.

Also, my perspective as the kind of frugal guy that everyone else calls cheap is that we live in the most rampantly consumerist society that has ever existed on the planet earth and we think we need all kinds of things that we really don't.

I just can't stomach the idea of throwing money to people who knew what they signed up for but then decided paying back what they owed was too hard.

I agree with what you're saying in general. But hypothetically, if the forgiveness was made retroactive to say 10 years (or however long ago you paid your loans back) and you got all your money back, would your opinion change?

Because you suffered, everyone in perpetuity must also suffer?

Why do people think this is a good argument whenever I bring that up? Because I signed an agreement that I must pay back my loans, I paid back my loans.

For the record, I didn't suffer. I felt fine and did plenty of fun things. I think the biggest mistake Americans make as a society is confusing convenience with happiness.

I would in fact be in favor of free college for everyone, but I hate this victim mindset floating around, and I think the largest benefits should go to the most prudent and responsible, instead of taxing people who withheld in their younger years to pay for people who didn't.

I'm against loan forgiveness. I went to an inexpensive local college, took the public bus to class, lived with my parents (I realize I was "privileged" enough to be able to do this), worked 25 hours/week while going to school, and took as many classes as possible at a low-cost community college that could be applied for credit to my 4-year degree.

I graduated with no debt.

I don't think others should also suffer. That's why, I want the government to stop backing student loans, and make new non-government loans like any other loan, including bk discharge.

Tuitions would drop rapidly, and nobody "in perpetuity" will have to suffer.

Most people who are against forgiveness are also against continuing to write new loans!

If this argument is made in public, people will never support debt forgiveness. not only it breaks the social contract with severe entitlement, it's also very hard to accept that people who can afford harvard or stanford "suffer"

populist emotional arguments are good when there is the populus to empathize with it. the vast majority of people won't care for such "plight".

You have to realize a lot of kids who went to Harvard and Stanford were just smart kids from normal suburban families and middle class homes. And many of them have middle class jobs, just like people with similar SAT scores who went to state schools instead.

Be wary of populist urges to tear down people you perceive to be "better" than you because maybe they're really not, or they're not the cause of the problem. Do things that will improve society, not just satiate your urge for blood.

What’s the endgame though? You have the federal government pay UChigago $100k a year times however many kids? And then when UChicago raises the price to $120k, the federal government pays that?

Where does it end?

I’m not against free college, or debt forgiveness, but sometimes even if you have a goal there’s no regulatory framework that can meet it.

If I wanted to prohibit abortions, while discouraging birth control, and ensuring victims of abuse get to control their bodies... well, sorry. There’s just no regulatory framework that can achieve that. Doesn’t matter what I think is “right”.

yeah no, i m not from the US and didn't study there so i don't perceive anyone as better or worse. But if the smartest, non-poor people can't keep their promises and are looking for shortcuts that would really make society worse. Painting what's normal (paying off debts) as "bloody" revenge is pure hyperbole

> in perpetuity

How is "debt forgiveness" solving the problem in perpetuity?

Debt forgiveness applies only to past debt, not future debt, unless I am misunderstanding the words.

Someone is suffering. It's either the taxpayer or the receiver of the education.

I think I'd be in favor of discounting them / forcing the interest rate down to ~0% so that they get eaten by inflation over time.

I don't think it's right to let people who sacrificed go high and dry while the people who abused the system get a break, though that is often how it plays out.

But it seems like there would be ways to lessen the burden for people who did take big loans without it being a complete handout.

What you're asking for is a solution in 10-15 years for a problem that's rearing it's head now. If you were to remove government backed loans, you would be locking a significant amount of the US population out of higher education. Without a higher educated workforce, where do you think workers for various jobs are going to come from if we decide to go full protectionist and reduce immigration potential?

Low cost universities don't just pop out of thin air and neither do the professors that staff them.

In addition, forgiving loans is probably not practical - where is all the money going to come from? More tax or less spending on some other service.

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