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Comment by paulgb | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised #1 isn't proposed more. It's not really even that radical when you consider that the Overton window now includes completely eliminating student debt.

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If you want to offer student loans to people with low incomes (as almost all students are and many of their families also are), you’re not going to be able to offer loans with traditional finance-based underwriting standards. If someone can only qualify for a pre-paid credit card or payday loan, is a lender going to step up and offer $100K+ in education loans?

I don’t want higher education open primarily to the already-wealthy. I don’t want to deny loans to students whose family will not co-sign loans for them, etc.

See my post above, that's already the case. I was able to setup a payment plan for the last part of my daughters tuition, about $100 /month. She had a scholarship for 100% of tuition and still couldn't get enough federal loans to cover room and board for the year at Purdue.

Luckily she also had some money saved for books, but there are plenty of families that couldn't afford this.

There are alternative, cheaper, forms of education. There's nothing wrong with somebody having to pay more for a better quality product or service. Using government to game the system just makes things worse for everyone (government debt, inflated prices, worthless degrees and indenture servants).

> I don’t want higher education open primarily to the already-wealthy.

I fully agree. I just think that providing cheaper capital to students (which is in effect what this enables) only has the effect of transferring more wealth from (the eventual earnings of) economically disadvantaged students, not less.

Source for claim?

This claim?

> the Overton window now includes completely eliminating student debt.

I'm referring to the fact that Bernie Sanders, who came close to being a major party candidate, ran on canceling student debt.

Wikipedia says "According to Overton, the window frames the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that time."

Bernie certainly did not gain new public office in 2020. I therefore think Bernie's primary run does not demonstrate the window's shift on canceling student debt across America. Sure, he came closer in 2020 but no cigar.

So long as Bernie keeps his Senate seat, I agree that the Overton window in Vermont now includes cancelling student debt. We won't know for certain unless he is reelected there.

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