Student Loan Forgiveness

[::: :::]

- If there's no loans and college isn't free then there's little chance for people with limited means to attend and graduate even if college is more affordable in the future.

- If on the other hand college is free then quality, quantity, and equity inevitably suffer because that would lead to price controls on tuition (paid through taxes) due to the fact there's no majority political constituency willing to foot the bill for the hefty spending it would require.

- So rather than a capitalist metric, it has to be something more like the Purdue model where instead of making major cuts universities find lots of small ways to cut costs and increase quality at the same.

Still not following: If college is free
It sounds like you are assuming that no tuition means no change to the educational product over time, which sounds speculative (& with a bias towards American Libertarian proclivities). There are tuition-free colleges in other parts of the world that operate just fine. Like anything public (highway systems for instance), they require maintenance & investment in their quality & longevity. No one loves financing highways, but once you decide they’re important they become a line item in the public budget going forward.

The Purdue strategy to keep the tuition artificially low is bumping into developing income in other ways (purchasing Kaplan & running a for-profit online educational system for example).

[Supermoon]

Free college can work because it works all over the world just fine. Federally funded college can and should come with some guidelines around academic standards and practices. I would also expect a shift to more, but smaller, schools, and fewer 60k kid party schools that spend their money on football

[MultiVerse]

This is about realism, not libertarianism. England, for example, used to have free college. When they went away from free college and started charging for tuition it resulted in increased funding per head, rising enrollments, and a narrowing of the participation gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students because assistance for student living expenses was also introduced.

Whereas, in contrast, the effectively free tuition system in Germany serves to entrench a pseudo class system. Because of the high cost to taxpayers for such a system it means in realty little is earmarked for student living expenses. Lower-income students then have to work, and numerous studies show students who have to work their way through college are much less likely to graduate.

Free college is no panacea.

[summit]

Indeed, much of what looks to outsiders like student-led protests and campaigns is in fact the product of the determination of the new administrative class to shape campus norms and priorities according to their own beliefs and preferences—which not coincidentally make the case for the importance of their own jobs.

That trend is well illustrated by the recent case that just cost Oberlin College $37 million in libel, slander, and tort damages because administrators were organizing and leading student protests and boycotts, and executing organizational boycotts, of an outside business based on false accusations of racism.

[rod9301]

- If there's no loans and college isn't free then there's little chance for people with limited means to attend and graduate even if college is more affordable in the future.

- If on the other hand college is free then quality, quantity, and equity inevitably suffer because that would lead to price controls on tuition (paid through taxes) due to the fact there's no majority political constituency willing to foot the bill for the hefty spending it would require.

- So rather than a capitalist metric, it has to be something more like the Purdue model where instead of making major cuts universities find lots of small ways to cut costs and increase quality at the same time, instead of the current model that starts with increasing tuition followed by then also increasing aid.

Are you sure that colleges in France or Germany are inferior because they are very cheap?

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[rod9301]

This is about realism, not libertarianism. England, for example, used to have free college. When they went away from free college and started charging for tuition it resulted in increased funding per head, rising enrollments, and a narrowing of the participation gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students because assistance for student living expenses was also introduced.

Whereas, in contrast, the effectively free tuition system in Germany serves to entrench a pseudo class system. Because of the high cost to taxpayers for such a system it means in realty little is earmarked for student living expenses. Lower-income students then have to work, and numerous studies show students who have to work their way through college are much less likely to graduate.

Free college is no panacea.

Dude, you're buying the propaganda. Free colleges work in almost every country in the world.

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[MultiVerse]

I cited sound academic research, Rod. The reality is tax payer funded free college would be a disaster for one of America's great egalitarian institutions, its public land grant schools. It's counter intuitive, but in many countries with free college the reality is substantially reduced admission rates because there is necessarily a cap on the number of people they can afford to enroll. College needs to be affordable, and free if private funding/endowments allow, but not free if it's at the public's expense.

[::: :::]

but not free if it's at the public's expense.

Lol

[shroom]

i disagree

is it free if my parents paid for it?

not providing education is building a fence. it’s the american way! no housing or education for the youth sounds like a great way to sink a country.

we already have ‘free school’, it just needs to extend to the point where it aligns with our corporate manufactured job requirements. i’m sure some private christian schools will save us.

otherwise we have a society where you can’t work or exist unless you pay. might as well charge a few hundred grand up front to have a kid rather than act like opportunity exists.

we need an educated populace and should incentivize it

[rod9301]

I cited sound academic research, Rod. The reality is tax payer funded free college would be a disaster for one of America's great egalitarian institutions, its public land grant schools. It's counter intuitive, but in many countries with free college the reality is substantially reduced admission rates because there is necessarily a cap on the number of people they can afford to enroll. College needs to be affordable, and free if private funding/endowments allow, but not free if it's at the public's expense.

I agree that fewer people are going to college in countries like germany

But i don't think this is bad. Colleges should be for the top students


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[MultiVerse]

On average German universities are not as good as American universities. Whereas there are universities in America that are not only better than their German counterparts but are also focused on affordability and on increasing enrollments.

[Name Redacted]

Apparently, since we refinanced we are not eligible. Ain't that some shit? Oh well, it would have really only been a drop in the bucket.

[Mustonen]

Apparently, since we refinanced we are not eligible. Ain't that some shit? Oh well, it would have really only been a drop in the bucket.

Forgiving privately held debt would be substantially more complicated, more controversial, and suddenly give somebody (banks) standing to mount a legitimate challenge.

[Mustonen]

I’m not entirely sure what rod and multiverse are nattering on about, but it seems they made a handful of simplistic assumptions and then projected them out to illogical extremes. Which is how our modern discourse works, I guess, so carry on.

[MultiVerse]

lol, as opposed to your persistent bad faith arguments in this thread which are a more accurate depiction of so called "modern discourse."

[Mustonen]

ETA: oooooh. Nice edit. Really turned up the contempt there. Stay classy. /ETA

That some amount of good is good. That this isn’t a simple problem, but the only viable solution in the short term WAS simple and is subject to obvious criticism, and 10k/20k of forgiveness isn’t designed to address the problems you’re fixated on anyways.

Higher education is good for society and our culture, even if it’s misapplied or over applied. I think figuring out how to make it accessible in a way that addresses classism is worth doing. But none of that has anything to do with the student loan forgiveness that is happening, per a poster up thread who wanted to take advantage of it for future tuition expense.

[MultiVerse]

Right, show me anyone who is arguing against higher education in this thread. The most predictable thing about the 6 degrees to Kevin Bacon conspiracies is after describing obviously flawed policy rather than contending with the issue at hand most, including you, retreat to the same old shopworn prejudicial tribal arguments.

You also know from our previous exchanges, this policy is more than just loan forgiveness and the loan forgiveness component will in fact increase college costs, or more accurately increase the rate of increase, which speaks directly to the issue of affordability.

[Mustonen]

Right, show me anyone who is arguing against higher education in this thread. The most predictable thing about the 6 degrees to Kevin Bacon conspiracies is after describing obviously flawed policy rather than contending with arguments at hand most, including you, retreat to the same old shopworn prejudicial tribal arguments.

Ah, sure sport.

Like I said, not really following what you’re going on about at this point, but I probably don’t have to. From what I gather you’re against one-time forgiveness of some past student loan debt and pointing at rising education costs as the reason why while ignoring the other attempts to address same. I’d follow along a bit better if you batted at those measures within this argument, but you’re just focused on the debt forgiveness. I don’t have particularly strong opinions about any of it, but am trying to follow most of the angles. /shopworn-tribal-argument

[MultiVerse]

The main reason we're in this mess with student loans to begin with is the gusher of student loan money essentially removes any incentive for colleges to do anything about costs. Forgiving those loans will make the problem worse. What's so hard to understand about that basic undeniable truth?

[Mustonen]

I don't know why you're having a hard time following along. The main reason we're in this mess with student loans to begin with is the gusher of student loan money essentially removes any incentive for colleges to do anything about costs.

Right. But forgiving past debt doesn’t give them more money. So if that’s your rail, well, I’m not following.

Sorry dude.

[MultiVerse]

The student loan giveaway is much bigger than you think. Which means it's adding to the existing structural problem created by massively subsidizing student debt. But ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

[Mustonen]

Guess so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Supermoon]

The student loan giveaway is much bigger than you think. Which means it's adding to the existing structural problem created by massively subsidizing student debt. But ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

You say a bunch of stuff like this but have no data to back it up. You say it’s bigger than we think, but what does that mean? And then you say because it’s bigger this forgiveness will drive up costs. Again, any evidence for that? And then you say subsidizing tuition through loans has been the driver of costs (through bloated admin budgets), but again, no evidence. You say these things like they are true (maybe they are?) and make logical jumps that aren’t backed up by evidence or theory.

I know you feel icky about this, but that doesn’t mean this is a sky is falling scenario.

Rising costs of higher ed is an issue, but nothing about loan forgiveness has anything to do with it good or bad. Nobody has been making payments for two years, so we would have data to back up claims about forgiveness by now (most people knew that Biden was going to eventually do some sort of forgiveness and have been acting as-if), but none of the detractors have any.

[MultiVerse]

My man, I've provided plenty of well sourced evidence throughout this thread. Some of it in direct response to your own posts.

What makes this policy worse than the status quo, worse than doing nothing, is the fact that there are already existing income-driven payment options like REPAYE that provide some form of loan forgiveness. If you think it's necessary to do more to alleviate student debt, better alternatives to this program have already been presented right here in this thread.

If you're really curious, here's what Jason Furman, a Democrat and former Obama economic adviser has to say about the problems with the debt-relief plan.

[Supermoon]

The question isn’t are there better plans (better being very subjective), the question is what can Biden do unilaterally with half of the Senate against any action that will make Biden look good to voters. Out of his options, this is one of the better ones. Nobody says it’s perfect, but to pretend like this isn’t going to help millions of people is just false.