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Comment by yeeyeeyee | Hacker News Reader

> forgive that percentage from every student loan

This would be unfair to students who were frugal and chose a 20k-25k/yr COA state school with the assumption that their debt must be repaid.

Going to college is an investment that you ideally should plan for and weigh the benefits of the education vs the cost. If you don't think it's worth the 20-25k/yr COA at state schools (or whatever ridiculous amount at private schools) than just don't go. It absolutely is, but okay. This is an incentive to make good choices about college and be educated and productive post-college. But cancelling more debt would remove this positive externality.

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Very tongue in cheek answer, but then Jesus dying for our sins is unfair to the newborn baby that was yet to sin (stolen from a bad meme).

I honestly don’t get why we have so little empathy. Just because it sucked for me, I want to suck it for other people as well? Crabs in a buckets mentality is utterly harmful to everybody except those outside that bucket wanting to eat us.

>no empathy

Look, my comment was about

(1) a possible explanation for the administration to choose a 10k flat vs. the proposed percentage based structure by the parent comment and

(2) identifying that having college cost a lot of money is an incentive that forces people to use it in order to get a job that makes a lot of money and (theoretically) contribute to the national productivity, which is good for the government

Nobody wants it to suck for other people. There are X costs involved in paying staff, you pay Y for tuition and the state government subsidies Z, maybe like half. Getting into college is competitive; it's a scarce resource that you outcompeted someone else for.

Snce you had to compete to get into that crab bucket, what about empathy for the people you excluded by doing this and, say, left out for the sharks. Easy to have empathy for the maybe 30% who actually go to a 4y university.

You are advocating for perpetuating the problem, while saying 'what about the people who don't go?' (paraphrasing).

College should be free, available to all.

Decrease the administrative bloat, fix the professor's pay, etc.

The way it is now, overwhelmingly the well-off are the ones able to attend the university of their choice, thus getting the job of their choice.

The gatekeeping by Ivy League schools should be abolishee.

That would fix the wealth-captivation/gatekeeping, and help those excluded from 4 year universities.

An investment?

Don't go to college and you'll be drowned in the flood of third world labor that has been allowed to invade the country. This is not the 1950's. You aren't going to graduate high school and support a family as a travelling shoe salesman. You're going to end up working next to Jorge in some dead end minimum wage job and spending most of your money on rent.

Saying that it's a choice is a form of gaslighting. For most people, not going means a life of brutal wage slavery and exploitation. I guess you would say it's a choice to live as well?

Sounds like a pretty good investment. What else would you call it?

Also, there are plenty of alternatives: trade schools, bootcamps, etc.

Finally, why introduce stereotypes? This is not the 1950s, you can't and shouldn't say stupid shit like that anymore.

I would call it a labor caste system.

You're the one speaking like we're living in another time. A time where people were freer and there was more economic opportunity. 40% of Americans don't even have $1000 in savings. It's a wildly dysfunctional and oppressive system and you're engaging in gaslighting because you benefit from it.

i didn't do college and i ended up in a pretty nice position. House paid for, car paid for, rv paid for, plenty of money for food /bills / fun. Could i have ended up in an even better position? maybe, but i could have ended up worse too.

I had some crap jobs sure, but i got the experience to move up and on. Call centers, warehouse jobs, tech support - ended up a system administrator without any class work or even any certs.

There is nothing wrong with the blue collar jobs either, they tend to make more money after 4 years experience than a recent college grad. And lots of them end up being their own boss!

Life is not fair and never will be. The sooner you learn that the happier you will be.

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