Devil's advocate: That's an extra $300B in consumer spending that will boost economic activity in every sector rather than going to lenders.
If cancer were cured, has everyone who had cancer prior been "penalized"?
People taking out a student loan voluntarily took on that debt. Pretty much nobody is voluntarily choosing to get cancer. (Yes, some people perform behavior that increases their chances, but rarely is it a 100% chance)
So if someone chose to do something knowing the negative consequences that would happen (repayment + interest), and then the rules change on them and everyone else in the middle of the contract, can you imagine someone being at least a little unhappy about that?
An analogy that I think fits better:
A teacher says there's an exam next Friday on chapters 1 - 5 from a textbook. You study, do your work, skip spending time with friends and family on the weekend in order to study for the exam.
But then the exam rolls around the teacher says, "Nah, you know what? We're only going to test chapters 4 - 5."
You might think, "But I could have seen my friends instead! I could have spent my limited amount of time in different ways over the past week. The guy who went out and partied all weekend got lucky and will get the same grade as me, ugh." I can certainly understand why someone who studied may feel unhappy about that, or think it's unfair.
When people say this, they are implying that choosing to get a higher education that creates student loan debt is equal to some other choice that wouldn't incur that debt. But of course, this is untrue; the benefits of a quality education are not equivalent to other options. It's not just "student loans or no student loans" in isolation.
To make your analogy somewhat more accurate (though probably still imperfect): it's like the teacher says "study chapters 1-5 and I'll give you a 90% guarantee in the class, and those chapters will be on the test", then the test ends up being only chapter 3. Yes, you spent the extra time studying you didn't need, but you still got the 90% guarantee in the class, so the time debt paid off even if the people who didn't study as much got to hang out with friends more, since they didn't get that 90% guarantee.
Smallpox was basically eradicated, but vaccines didn't "punish" people who died from it before they were invented.
In fact, in a case like that, you should be pissed off at Jeff, not at the people helping everyone which happens to include Jeff.
Why should someone with a B.A. be fed and not someone with only a high school diploma?
Care to take a guess at how much money -- sorry, "blood and sweat" -- this will cost a taxpayer?
$200/year.
How much is annual tuition in the US?
$8,000 on average, $2,000 at my local public college.
If this paves the way for future policies to forgive new loans similarly, that $200/year will decrease as the backlog of existing loans are out of the pool. At which point, every single taxpayer could get the same education for less than $200/year as opposed to $2,000 - $15,000+. ($2,000 being the cost of my local public college, $15,000 being the annual tuition at the school I attended; the + meaning I understand there are more expensive places.)
This is not "the blood and sweat of taxpayers". This is 2 weeks' food bills spread over 52 weeks with the potential to give those taxpayers an education along with everyone else who they're paying taxes for.
> And goes to clearly morally bankrupt portion of population. Those who over spend with debt money.
So you can't think of any reasons someone might have student loan debt other than "they made bad choices and are immorally expecting other people to pay for it"?
Nice try, but not true - you get the loan, you can do what you want with it as long as you stay in school...rent, spring break vacations, food, entertainment etc. none of that has anything to do specifically with education.
Some loans go directly to the schools. Others do get disbursed to the student. But you said a key phrase in your own comment: "as long as you stay in school". Money is fungible. If I get paid $5,000 in student loans and use that to buy a computer, but then I have to pay $5,000 out of pocket for tuition, that is identical to me paying for tuition with the student loans. The second I decide to stop paying tuition, the loans stop as well. So it doesn't matter what a student spends the check on directly, as long as they're using that money and paying tuition, the student loan is being used for education.
So someone makes a bad decision with money as a teenager, probably pressured like a mf by HS counselors and others saying that they must go to college and that makes them “morally bankrupt”. Shit, some other idiot in this thread called the people who thought differently than him “evil”, we’re going hard on the propaganda train today!
How can you even attempt to speculate on the moral character of the student loan debtors ?
I'm not sorry to say that if people think it's valid to argue "I shouldn't have to pay $12/month to help other people live a healthy life", then our society is broken because the people in it are broken.
This will not turn into consumer spending if the debt is just "erased". People who can't pay their loans don't have money to spend elsewhere.
I don't think either would just hide it under a mattress. Lenders would invest it in capital projects and the Government would use it to pay off political supporters.
Heh.