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> However, I don't think other people should have to suffer through what I suffered just because I had to go through it myself. I want society to improve and for others to receive the benefits of those improvements, even if I myself will never get to enjoy them.

The right way to do this is giving everyone the same amount of cash and increasing marginal income tax rates.

It would be politically stupid to reward a small amount of people who have low voter participation rates and instead earn the ire of many who have high voter participation rates.

Simply stopping government funded higher education loans would be a better move that actually addressed the root problem with higher education costs.

If the goal is to help poor people, then help all poor people. Not just a subsection of the poor that happened to borrow money for overpriced signaling mechanisms.

> The right way to do this is giving everyone the same amount of cash and increasing marginal income tax rates.

And in your system, this counterbalances the natural advantage that children born to wealthy parents have how?

It increases taxes on the rich and then uses those tax funds to redistribute wealth.

Canceling student debt on the other hand would be a massive handout for the rich as the majority of student debt is held by rich and upper middle class Americans. Students from from the poorest quartile of households have just 5% of the student debt [1].

1. https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-by-income-level

That would have to be addressed with estate taxes and lowering the gift exclusion amounts, and/or property tax, but implementing that on all assets seems difficult.

Or scrapping all income/property taxes, and just having marginal sales taxes (the more you spend, the more tax you pay), but then that would require tracking every single transaction.

I'm not some sadist who likes watching anyone suffer, but there's no easy way out.

My earnings and earnings potential will likely forever be below someone who graduated from ivy league. My network is also much smaller and less affluent.

Now telling me I have to pay the tuition of folks that went to said schools, via taxes, is a giant slap in the face.

I've not seen this debate contextualized that way. Is it predominately ivy league grads calling to have their debt canceled? If so, I think that really ought to be highlighted.

I mentioned it because Yale specifically is one I passed on due to the loans I'd need to take.

That said, a quick Google says that 12% of student debt per year is taken by students at elite schools, despite it representing a tiny portion of borrowers. Link below.

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/biden-is-right-a-lot-of-s...

When I click that link, I get redirected to https://www.brookings.edu/articles/no-aid-to-religion-charit.... The article is titled "No Aid to Religion?: Charitable Choice and the First Amendment". I read it, but it was written in 1999 and not relevant. I'm not sure what's going on there.

I did manage to find the article though. Thanks for sharing. Based on my own experience attending a private university, I had thought students at ivy league schools mostly used private loans. Unfortunately, the article doesn't break out which debt is government-backed and which isn't. This much debt in general is problematic for young professionals, but my understanding is that "cancel student loans" is about the government-backed debt. I'll have to see if I can find a breakdown somewhere.

If it applied to new people making new decisions, it's an improvement. But if it applies retroactively to bad decisions, that's different.

Any "free" money going forward would presumably come with some strings that at least attempt to keep things reasonable. But it just feels wrong to pay off someone's irresponsible private school loan from a few years ago.

Is it more irresponsible for an 18 year-old to take on six figures of debt or for the lending institution to so easily give it out?

From the standpoint of the lender, it's a little complicated. Financially, I'm sure it works out for them under the current rules or they wouldn't do it.

Socially, you could make an argument that they should be more careful. But to the borrower, any denial could be interpreted as taking away an opportunity, and could really backfire if not done very transparently and rigorously following an acceptable process. What if the process unintentionally has a disproportionate impact on one race, for instance?

For something seen as a ticket to the middle class, it's politically better to leave the decision up to the individual.

> It's like getting upset at the development of a cheap cure for cancer

No, it's like taking my taxes and giving them to someone else instead of services which benefit many people.

I'd also like to eliminate "charitable" tax deductions (handouts to the wealthy) and tax-sheltered retirement accounts with millions in them (like Mitt Romney's Roth IRA), and would support UBI and basic free healthcare (if it came with eliminating a lot of bureaucracy), in case you just think I "hate the little guy".

This analogy doesn't hold up. A cheap new cure doesn't help those who struggled in the past but they can still cut me a fat check for the money I paid back and I will benefit from it all the same.

Getting cancer isn't a decision though, and curing cancer isn't zero-sum. You can argue the schools were predatory, but someone who made the responsible decision to take a scholarship at a state school is footing the bill for someone who made the irresponsible decision to take loans to attend an expensive private school.