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Comment by ar_lan | Hacker News Reader

It's sort of the same envy I feel when I see student loan forgiveness. I worked a ton (30+ hrs weekly) in college, and 40+ hrs during summer/winter break, to ensure I graduated college with no loans taken.

And now to see loan forgiveness for people who took far fewer sacrifices (especially lawyers/doctors, who make significantly more than me now) - it sort of reinforces that working hard is a sucker move, and definitely discourages me from doing such paths if I believe I can just get a bail out later.

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The vast majority of debt for people under 125k/yr who qualify for the 10k relief is the interest, not principle. The forgiveness is then effectively for a tax in this case, not the actual loan, when you think of it like this.

The federal government designed the federal loan program to make them money, based on interest. It has panned out as a very stupid fucking idea, in retrospect, and has made millions of people debt slaves for years on end. They set themselves up for this, combined with stagnating wages, making everything a joke. Everybody wants to talk about bailouts and "work ethic" but seemingly forget the monetary policy was set and managed by the federal government over the past several decades. They could have done better policy if they didn't want a bunch of bullshit.

It has nothing to do with work ethic, at the end of the day. It was a policy decision from on high, and the snowball was set in motion probably long before you even went to school.

I worked 35 hours a week while in college. I had almost six figures of loans once I was done. I didn’t pay them off until my 30s.

It is precisely because of how much that hampered me that I’m glad that others are relived of that burden. It’s even harder for kids these days!

There's no "reliving" of the burden. It is transferred to others, including those who already paid their student loans once, and those who never went to college in the first place. That is, all taxpayers and holders of government debt.

If the money was clawed back from universities, that would be fine, since they were at the receiving end of the racket.

People interested in what taxpayer money is going towards really ought to google where the majority of it is spent (hint: it's not student debt relief)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/11/22/why-cant-the-do...

The government is also why we’re in this situation in the first place. Their fuckup, their bill.

At the end of the day, this debt forgiveness is a drop in the bucket compared to other things that the government does that my tax dollars get spent on that I would prefer it not be. If we’re truly worried about the cost here, there’s plenty of other things we could take that money from that I would happily support.

If you went to school at a time where working any non-degree-required job is enough to pay for your college (like I did), you went at a time completely different than today. College is prohibitively expensive; loans are all but required. And if a lawyer or doctor earns less than $125k they can have the extra ten grand.

In addition to the income limits (that right-wing media LOVES to conveniently leave out when lashing out against loan forgiveness), the loan forgiveness was for only up to $10K.

I can assure you that lawyers/doctors have FARRRRRR more than that.

I worked about 30 hrs/week while going to school. I didn't take a summer break. I finished my BS in CS in 2014 with about $45K of student loan debt that I paid off in 6 years.

For me to get upset now about people having some of their loans forgiven seems weird to me. It reeks of "I suffered, so should you!" energy. It'd be like fighting against new treatments for a disease because a loved one died from said disease already.

If you're talking about the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness plan, I think you've been a bit misled about the "lawyers/doctors" part - you have to be making under $125k/yr ($250k/yr if filing as married) to qualify for forgiveness, and the vast majority of eligible loans are undergraduate, not graduate. So it would likely be extremely rare for well-paid doctors or lawyers to have their loans forgiven through this program - unless they were working in lower-paid positions (think rural doctor or public defender - arguably exactly the type of roles we should aim to encourage people into with programs like this!)

Thank you for this information! I did not know this caveat.

I completely agree, some folks drastically benefit from this (in a needed way), and I feel no envy or upset towards them. It looks like my thoughts were misguided.

> unless they were working in lower-paid positions (think rural doctor

Fun fact: rural doctors actually make more than city/urban doctors usually.

[1] https://dailyyonder.com/pay-is-higher-for-rural-physicians-n... [2] https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/primary-care-docs...

I understand your frustration. The economy is a system of incentives; and if incentives are misaligned this will lead to mistrust and eventually chaos.

Student loans are predatory. Some people fell for it and some people avoided it. I think the question: Who is (or should be) bailing any of this; rather than making you whole or keep this system just because you are the one who figured it out.

Of course, it is the tax payers (the weakest and most easily accessible $$ thing) who will pay for this (either with taxes, government debt or money go brrrrr). This will further alienate these tax payers and lead to the eventual collapse of this economic system.

So I guess I started off trying to make you feel better about it but now you are going to feel worse (since not only you won't be getting the special treatment but you are also probably the one paying both the predators and the "less intelligent" people who took these loans).

> To be eligible for forgiveness, you must have federal student loans and earn less than $125,000 annually (or $250,000 per household). Borrowers who meet that criteria can get up to $10,000 in debt cancellation.

Do lawyers or doctors typically earn less than $125,000 or $250,000/household? If not, loan forgiveness does not impact them the way you think.

> Do lawyers or doctors typically earn less than $125,000 or $250,000/household?

One of my friend groups has a lot of young doctors and recent med school grads. They are all looking for the best ways to take advantage of this, including things like accelerating marriage timelines to be a "household" instead of individual so they can qualify under the limit. Starting salaries for family practice physicians, for example, can fit under that $250K limit.

I'm not opposed to loan forgiveness for certain people, but the $250K household limit without a gradual phaseout is a baffling move.

100% of "recent med school grads" make less than $125k. A brand new resident will be making $45-50k and the yearly bump is in the single-digit percentages.

> And now to see loan forgiveness for people who took far fewer sacrifices (especially lawyers/doctors, who make significantly more than me now) - it sort of reinforces that working hard is a sucker move,

Just a note for anyone else reading this, but you’re only eligible for the $10k forgiveness if you have government undergraduate loans, and you make less than $125k. Few high paid professionals will qualify, and graduate law school/med school can cost $200k+.

TLDR: probably still work hard. Welfare is for the needy, or corporations.

If it makes you feel better, there is very little chance of loan forgiveness being allowed, and it will likely be in grid-lock until GOP takes the presidency in 2024 and kills it.

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