this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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Personally I don't like student loan forgiveness because I think a free public university system is a better investment.
Yeah, same reason I don't like insulin, I want a permanent cure for diabetes... In the meantime fuck diabetic people, am I right?
/S in case people are confused
Free education will make the world a better place in the future for everyone. Debt forgiveness is just for people who don't want to pay their bills because they studied something that doesn't pay.
Curing diabetes will make the world a better place in the future for everyone. Insuline is just for people who want to eat candy all day because they hate themselves
/S
Ps: it's hilarious how quickly you showed the true colours you pretended to hide in your first post
100%
PS: Huh?
I'm genuinely confused by this? I know CompSci and engineering majors that are having trouble with loans and are you saying that they should have tried a more profitable degree... What?
I'm saying people made choices.
And I'm saying they were coerced into it because of the poor handling of public funding for universities thus making it the governments fault that sometimes people got fucked by loans no matter what degree they got.
To advocate for fixing a systemic problem and not also advocate for fixing what the systemic problem has caused is weird. Fixing these issues aren't exclusive like you seem to think they are.
No one was coerced to do anything. Cheaper options were available at state schools, community colleges and boot camps. Many people instead chose debt and more expensive schools instead.
If we're going to drop a trillion we really don't have on something, I'd prefer to build for the future while you don't want to pay your bills.
Normally we call that 'victim blaming'; even when the victimization is financial by the univer$ity.
I get you have this "do the crime, do the time" thing for people choosing to spend on education; but aside from multi-decade reform plan that isn't even as marketable to voters as "let's just consolidate healthcare and save money", what do we have that'll help people avoid the looming debt trap that has such a chilling effect on others entering post-secondary education?
We have inflation for that. Wages will eventually go up.
And there was no crime here.
You do NOT get a choice about getting an education in a vast, vast majority of life paths in the developed world.
I know a lot of people and exactly two of them are working in the field they got degrees in. You cannot always control the direction of your life, anything from medical issues to family emergencies to economics in your region can profoundly impact your chances of landing a career in your chosen study field, or even just getting a simple job that can pay back tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars as the interest snowballs.
You absolutely have a choice.
Clearly there should be debt forgiveness for people with medical issues. Otherwise people should think ahead.
And I started all of this by saying that university should be free. I'm not the enemy here. You signed an agreement to pay those bills, now do it.
The vast majority of people are thinking ahead when they get a loan to get an education. The rest of your comment is telling people with problems "fuck you, got mine" and I'm done with it. Enjoy your block. Enjoy your blessings and enjoy being hateful to people who had different luck in life, I'm sure abandoning human decency will really help in everything you do.
I'm sorry you can't handle when someone disagrees with you. I'm not abandoning human decency when I say things like "university should be free" and "if anything all education loans should be refinanced with a interest rate ceiling". You are a coward.
This is true.
This is utter garbage. Judgemental much? Maybe your own experiences and feelings aren't the same for everyone.
I do not have a degree. Still here and happy. Make better choices.
¿Por qué no los dos?
I too prefer free tertiary education. But that also does not relieve the millions saddled with predatory loans.
Not all loans were predatory, some people just made dumb choices all on their own. If anything there should be a reasonable limit on the interest rates and the loans should be refinanced.
And, as for why not both, we actually can't afford either. Investing for the future is a better deal for society than fixing people's personal mistakes.
What do you mean we can't afford either? Are you telling me that somehow all other developed countries are able to afford free or cheap higher education but somehow the US cannot? We could also slowly start to cancel current student debt. Sure, it is at $1.77 trillion right now but that does not have to be wiped away all at once. Prioritize getting rid of predatory loans, then those those with financial hardship, then go from there.
Yes, we can't afford it, because we chose to spend all of our money on the military.
This sounds like we could afford it, we just need to take that money back from the military…
Yes, but also, America. It's not that I don't want these things, I just think they're politically impossible.
We could switch to Medicare for All and save a couple hundred billion a year to do it.
Overall, not without raising taxes though. The money just doesn't stop getting spent by people and appear in the government budget without it.
If your "taxes" go up by $7 but your health insurance costs go down by $10, why the hell would you care? There are several more dollars in your pocket. Or if you are concerned about tax amount, let's rename current health insurance fees to taxes and we can simply market Medicare for All as a massive tax cut that increases service.
Where does that math come from? I can't think of anything that got more efficient just because the government got involved.
I love the idea of Medicare For All but it should be a choice for people who want it.
But...if you think free public university is a good thing...isn't not giving loan forgiveness analogous to saying "folks should stay in jail for trumped up marijuana charges until it's legal Federally"? IMHO people shouldn't have these loans in the first place.
If we can't afford loan forgiveness, we can't afford free public university. We can simultaneously fix the problems of the past while trying to improve things for the future.
The marijuana comparison is not even close to the same thing.
In terms of harm done, no. Principle? Yeah? It's best to stop further harm, but undoing past harms as well is even better.
It's also important for dumb choices to have consequences. The systemic racism that brought the majority of the marijuana convictions is not even close in comparison to someone who borrowed money to get a degree that was never going to make a decent income.
The assumption that you should only do things that are profitable is faulty. I don't want to live in a world where that's true, and if you thought about it longer you probably also don't. Assuming you like books, art, music, culture, etc.
People shouldn't choose to take on debt that they can't afford and free education will still get me all of that culture.
So free University only for majors you deem worthy? Or only for profit minded disciplines? MBAs yes, but art history no?
Besides, economic desperation makes people make poor choices, and I'd wager that most people taking on debt for education don't consider it a poor choice. Often higher education is key to economic success, but given tumultuous economic conditions in the past decades....things haven't panned out for everyone, which makes those decisions look worse in hindsight.
You can't claim everyone with student loan debt has it because they're a worthless hippie art student. The increase in the number of bachelor's degrees made it more competitive to get jobs requiring those degrees, meaning people need to get them just to compete...so people wind up shackled with debt.
It's free to be sympathetic to people who are in a tough situation, even if they bear some responsibility for it. We all do.
No, free university for whatever. It's simply a better investment than fixing people's past mistakes.
You're not explaining why you think that, beyond wanting to punish people for taking out loans.
Your position is inconsistent, because you're arguing they shouldn't have needed to take out those loans.
Again: you're saying people made mistakes, but I don't think that's precisely the case. The majority of student debt isn't because of people going to incredibly expensive schools for useless majors, you know.
I don't want to punish anyone, I just think free university is a better investment for the future. Debt relief only removes the consequences for the choices some people made, while free university is for everyone.
Making it free for everyone is excellent, specifically because it removes the potential of "the consequences for the choice" of taking out loans.
If you're operating under the assumption that we can only do one or the other, sure: free going forward is better. I just think that we need to make it retroactively free, too.
We can't afford either. Clearly you should run for office so you can divert money from national defense to education so we can trade our safety for your bills, you won't get elected though.
For my bills? I do have student debt, but have a job that pays well enough I don't have to stress about it. I do worry about others that aren't as fortunate.
And if we can't afford either, why are you arguing it should be free? If you're saying you want something that you're also saying is impossible, why not champion two impossible things?
Good luck trying to articulate your thoughts and positions in the future, because you've failed to do so thus far, and I've exhausted my patience...so I'm gonna bounce
Please do.
Except the system is so fucked that even terrible low paying jobs routinely ignore applicants without degrees.
State universities, community colleges, boot camps and inexpensive online universities exist. Not to mention trade schools and entrepreneurship. No one was forced to take on an insane amount of debt. They chose it.
FWIW, the system is fucked for people that have degrees right now too. The job market is super competitive and a lot of educated people are struggling to find work.
We should plan for the future rather than pay the bills you don't feel like paying.