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Comment by belval | Hacker News Reader

I understand that this is a sensitive topic for people in the US (not from the US), but I am making this comment in good faith.

The current situation notwithstanding, why should the government forgive student loans? Shouldn't the responsability lie with the student to actually do the math and not graduate in pottery at 20k$/year since there is no chance of ever paying it back?

Don't get me wrong, I think tuition should be much lower in the US to avoid the situation entirely (much like we do in Canada), but it's not like the debt magically appeared, they had to apply to college knowing what it would cost, chose to take on debt and then the government should "fix" that bad decision for them?

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It's a cultural issue more than anything, I think. Growing up, you're told that you need to go to college if you want to be successful. In high school the gifted kids are pushed into college prep courses. When you start applying for colleges you are told to find a college that "fits" and a major that you're interested in, so you can build a future that makes you happy.

All the parents and teachers that you trust want you to be happy. Most of them don't care to inform you that the choices you're making now might leave you destitute for a decade. Most of them probably didn't know, because when they were growing up a college degree by itself was enough to thrust you into the upper middle class (supposedly).

Personally, I didn't get it until my first year of university, when I got a financial report on my $7500 of debt, realized that by graduation it would be $30,000. I looked up some salary numbers and thought about it for literally the first time in my life. That's when I decided I needed to change majors from chemistry to compsci, and I was damn lucky that carnegie mellon was where I chose to study chemistry.

I like you answer, I think it explains it well.

If we ignore lowering the cost of tuition as a solution, what do you think could've helped in your situation? Making high school students aware of what college will cost and having them "do the math"?

Simply make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy. Right now there's no countervailing force to taking out as large a loan as possible when you're 18 except your ability to anticipate what your life will be like ten years from now, which is difficult for most people and particularly difficult for teenagers. Making lenders have some actual skin in the game will make them perform due diligence, and the market will quickly correct itself once they have to bear some of the risk of a degree being economically worthless.

“I got a financial report on my $7500 of debt, realized that by graduation it would be $30,000.”

Shocking numbers; the sort of APR we’d expect from dodgy pay-day companies and illegal loan sharks. You’d be far better off just taking out a mortgage, plus you get a nice house at the end and they don’t smash your ankles if you default.

Just to be clear - interest doesn't accrue until graduation, the "it would be $30,000" just means each school year added a new $7500 loan.

Expecting 18 year olds coming from relatively poor families to understand debt is a tall order in the US.

If you aren’t capable of understanding debt you should t go to college.

Your moral judgment notwithstanding, here we are, discussing the problem of people unable to pay their expensive guaranteed loans.

Perhaps your proposal is that, before someone takes out a loan, they take and pass a course that covers interest rates, credit scores, expected income, alternatives, and other such issues? Is that what you meant?

I won't speculate whether it has anything to do with politics or financial literacy, but for many people in the US, debt is a widely accepted cost of participating in society. I am fortunate enough not to have any debt, but many of my peers will regularly go into debt in excess of $100K in order to afford the cost of higher education and a home. Debt is just an ordinary part of life in the US.

There is a difference between using debt as a tool to live and taking on debt to earn a degree that will not eventually allow you to pay back that debt.

There is nothing wrong (at least compared to student debt) with people having $400k+ mortgage or car payments, the issue arise when that money is used to earn a degree that has no monetary value.

This argument only works if there is good opportunity outside of college, which is a huge stretch to claim these days.

And thus the cycle continues.

This is a somewhat insidious form of gatekeeping.

Especially considering people make much more money if they have a college degree. Even if you don't understand debt, you understand that. The problem isn't incapability of understanding debt - it's never actually being taught it.

That's fair. Are there financial literacy courses in the US? I know in Canada they reintroduced them a few years ago because banks would push credits card on anyone older than 18 years old and that caused financial problems down the line.

I guess what I struggle with when shaping my opinion on this issue is to balance accountability and empathy. I absolutely understand that an 18 years old might not do the math at all and I find it difficult to support having them struggle for multiple decades because of it. On the other hand, they are adults and by definition they did borrow that money, the lender is "right" to expect to see that money back.

> On the other hand, they are adults and by definition they did borrow that money, the lender is "right" to expect to see that money back.

I don't necessarily agree with that. Who's fault is it really, when banks give out loans to young adults with no credit history to get an unknown degree at an unknown total cost? We punish young adults for making a poor decision, but we don't punish banks for giving out loans that don't have collateral. Seems unfair, no?

And that's the problem. It's a risk free proposition for lenders - students can't default, the interest rates are high. But by allowing bankruptcy, then all the risk falls on the banks. Student loans essentially shouldn't exist, and only do because of the demand for college, which leads into the second problem:

There aren't good alternatives to college in the west.

> they had to apply to college knowing what it would cost, chose to take on debt and then the government should "fix" that bad decision for them?

Compare and contrast the length of time it takes a convicted felon to repay their debt to society, even in a country like the US where criminal sentences are quite extreme, with the length of time it takes a well-intentioned kid who made a "bad decision" (that they were almost certainly encouraged to make by the authority figures in their young lives) to pay back a large student loan debt that does not pay off with a high-paying job.

> The current situation notwithstanding, why should the government forgive student loans?

This is a weird question because the answer is so obvious. For all the same reasons we got rid of debtors' prisons, we allow normal loans to be discharged through bankruptcy, etc.

Take it for what its worth but in the U.S one could conceivably go study a "fine art" masters in a private institution and pay north of $250k for a job (if it exists at all) that would pay sub $60k. I saw someone on Twitter talk about this guy who has $300k from a master's in puppetry (lol?).

Besides the obvious first step consequences and moral hazards and not fixing the proper causes of the problem, there are more negative consequences. Think of what would happen to the idea that "the U.S is a fair lender and you can rely on them to do right by you". What happens to the world investors big and small who observe this and then imagine a day where they would do the same to their U.S Treasury loans etc?

At that point all bets are off and no one will loan money to the U.S. The U.S school loan market is greater than $1 trillion, this isn't pocket change.

They weren't lying about the the puppetry degree.

https://drama.uconn.edu/programs/puppet-arts/mamfa-puppetry/...

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