this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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Yeah I don't think this covers the situation as much as it's a nice feel good story.
Imagine for a second you are relatively poor, you go to a state school or community college in order to afford it. You have loans, but they are small.
Now imagine you're upper middle class, you go to a private or out of state school and take loans out for a much much larger amount than the other person, with the expectation that you're getting more value for your money (let's ignore the labyrinth there for a second -- this is something many people believe and believing it, for some, makes it true).
Now, both loans are forgiven
Youve succeeded in making the rich richer, giving them both the higher valued education and all of their money back.
Or imagine you're that poor student but you're smart: you got a grant or scholarship making your loans nonexistent, but only if you go to the state school.
Once again, forgiving loans makes the already wealthy person significantly more wealthy and does nothing to benefit the poorer person.
Yes, of course, there's a wide range of reasons a person might go down either route, and I'm absolutely certain there are many millions of people who have gotten loans way above their wealth in order to go to a better school and jump out of poverty (or whatever). This comic ignores the nuance.
In the cancer analogy, this would be a poor person dying or otherwise experiencing terrible health problems because they couldn't get the care they needed, then when a cure is developed, only administering it to the people who could afford care to begin with (ie american health care)
If this is a one-time event it's hardly the solution to the problem. Education should be free or close to free in general.
If that's the case, things suddenly look different. Even only if e.g. state schools are free.
In my country the tuition fee for a state university is around €30 per semester, and that doesn't even go to the university but to fund the student governing body (not sure what's the right translation for the term).
This means, that everyone can get a quality education even if they are poor. In fact, most people I went to university with funded their flat/student accomodation and food with a part-time job while going to university. No debts or financial assistance needed.
This doesn't cover private universities, but (a) the difference in quality and reputation isn't relevant and (b) free public universities means that private universities are also somewhat price capped if they want to stay competitive.
Of course, but that's never been a serious proposal in this country so I wasn't responding to it.
It's feasible to do this today in the US at some schools, but your parents have to really push you to get a lot of scholarships. It's not common.