255
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
255 points (96.7% liked)
politics
19145 readers
2854 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
unpopular opinion: if you take out a loan, you should have to repay it in full - alternately, dont buy what you cant afford to.
ah, you're looking for an echo chamber then? lol nope. I'm here to rock the boat, pal.
I'm against student loan forgiveness, and I think this is a perfectly fair idea.
Fuck free government money to those who don't need it. That includes the "small business owners" who scammed the fuck out of PPP loans as well as middle class people who benefited from their degree and can afford to pay it back.
Hey bud. College educated here. And that degree has done jack shit for me to get into the field of cloud computing. Just a weight I carry now because every cloud job tells me "oh you have the degree? That's cool but that degree just means you know the basics. Get x y and z certs. Btw you have to pay for them yourself. And on top of that we want 3-5 years of experience in the field as well. So see you in 2030!"
Great. So you'll get the certs and then you'll be making 180k and you'll be able to afford your loans.
As someone who has paid off my own students loans I gotta say I fully disagree. The system we have for paying for college is super predatory and creates incentives for all kinds of shitty, but still legal, behavior by colleges, loan companies, etc. School shouldn't cost so damn much in the first place, it didn't for our parents, it shouldn't have for us, it damn well shouldn't for our kids.
Yeah, and student loan forgiveness doesn't change that at all, except possibly making it even worse by inflating future tuition costs.
You're right, it isn't sufficient to fix the problem but you can't make it right without forgiveness for those stuck eternally with the bullshit loans they were coerced into.
It's cart before the horse though. That shouldn't be the priority.
Much easier to do though.
But then if we do that, all the middle income energy will evaporate. It will become the classic "fuck you, I got mine". One time relief for millenials and nothing for zoomers?
In the whole time this has been part of the national discussion, I have literally - literally - never ONCE had a loan forgiveness supporter bring up systemic reform. Not even as an AFTERTHOUGHT. Y'all don't care. You're not about improving society. You just want your money.
I literally paid my debt. I'm not in this for money. They got my money. Does it fix all problems? No. Does it help the current massive buildup of debt that is clogging this generations ability to thrive economically? Absolutely. Do we need systemic solutions? For sure. Forgiveness of these loans is good even by itself.
I disagree. It's a handout for a lucky few, and it's making it worse for everyone else.
Now I'm not against the handout per se. Millenials were definitely shafted and deserve some recompense.
But systemic solutions should be paramount. Harness this anger to fix the problem for everyone.
Opinion that I don't care about the popularity of: An educated populace improves the economy and college should be free.
there's no real guarantee that higher education will lead to a net gain in the economy though - it might, but it's not a 100% chance.
k-12 is already free, and a lot of people over the decades have been very productive with just that level of education - daresay they've contributed more to the economy - after all, anyone working is a net economic gain over no one working, regardless of their level of education.
Good luck getting a job paying much more than $15 an hour without a college degree. That'll sure make a big economic gain.
This is a multi layered problem without an easy solution. At face value, there really isn't anything wrong with your statement, but once you dive into student loans/college education/how public education made everyone believe the only path forward was college - maybe, just maybe something needs to be done.
Capping interest rates so that people can actually pay their debt down is not a bad thing. The root of the problem still needs to be tackled - college is too expensive and administration departments are too bloated - but when the government guarantees the loans, colleges just raise rates because they know students can get them. Schools are not teaching enough financial literacy to make sure kids understand the opportunity cost of what they are signing up for.
Saying this as a person lived at home and commuted to undergrad and for my master's degree and paid my loan back.
i dont have any issue with loan rates being capped, but I wholehearted believe that anyone who takes out a loan should be required to pay it back. it's true that higher education has a lot of bloat, but it's the nature of the beast for organizations to grow over time. I personally dont believe that the federal government has any right to tell a business how it can run itself - because that's what colleges/universities are - they're for-profit businesses. the correct play here would be to choose a college/university that has low bloat - but that would of course require quite a bit of research.
part of the issue, as I see it, with the "schools dont teach financial literacy" is that funding for public school is, at a certain level, dependent on how well the students perform at absorbing the material and then regurgitating it in structured tests. what happens when financial/maths learning is introduced and then a large percentage of the student body fails to learn it? the end result is that school district cant afford new teachers so certain programs are dropped, or teachers are fired. is financial literacy so important that you'd prefer it at the expense of arts programs or sports programs? reading/writing/arithmetic and literally nothing else only really works when you're in the late 1800s and farming is what you're graduating into.
I think this part is what everyone takes exception to. Especially in gen x, no one warned us that “Maybe college isn’t for you because you won’t want a payment that takes 15% of all of your income each month when you’re also trying to scrounge up enough money to buy a house”.
The message was more “you’re going to be begging groceries at Piggly Wiggly like your cousin Bert if you don’t get a degree in something”
Bert now has more in his 401k than I’m even close to. Feels like we’ve been bamboozled.
Not just gen x. Millennial here, and I remember college being pushed on us as an idea in middle school up to high school graduation as a "make or break" thing for our futures. You either go to college or you end up a deadbeat.
Bamboozled we definitely were.
Top end of Gen Z here (graduated HS in 2017) and it’s the same here. College was the only option presented. Everything else was an alternative to college, not a standalone thing and was also still extremely expensive.
I suppose then it's a lesson on whom you should trust when you're planning on making life-altering financial decisions. presumably the lesson was learned?
Let's start with those huge PPP loans then.
PPP loans were provided to businesses so that their employees werent immediately fired wholesale - which is what would have happened to many businesses when the customer base dried up during lockdown/covid. businesses are a net gain to the economy - they provide economic stimulus. allowing businesses to fail would just start a collapse. PPP loans by the government worked to prevent that - rather well, in fact.
students eventually provide economic stimulus but are a net detriment until they are capable of adding back to the economy & that includes paying off their student loans.
and again, students are an economic sink until they're able to contribute to the economy. conversely, a business will always contribute to the economy - even a failing business pays their employees (or doesnt and the DoL sues them, then pays the employees).
PPP loans were a stopgap measure to ensure that the economy didnt collapse when old people were dying in droves. literally all it was. PPP loans were forgiven because the national economy requires that businesses move money around - the "spice must flow", if you will - and rightly so, because a business is useful, whereas students really arent.
You do realise that most people that have student loans controbute to the economy already because they work after studying for a short time?
Those people can often barely afford to live because the companies that got PPP loans do not pay them a living wage. Those people can't afford buying things which in fact is the only the only way that an economy works.
Without consumption the economy crashes.
Additionally the PPP loans didn't have any oversight. Many business owners used them to buy a new car, a Yacht or other luxuries.
Do you think it is fair to forgive loans for the rich but not the poor?
Schools shouldn’t over charge for classes. My university charged 3k for just two courses that were two days a week. School should be cheaper and jobs should pay more.
I wasn’t fortunate enough to have a college fund setup for me or be taught how to save at a very young age. I don’t have parents to put me through college since.
Also why did PPO loans get forgiven? Student loan forgiveness should take priority over that
that's nonsense. higher education has a LOT of administrative overhead. the overwhelming vast majority of teachers/professors/etc expect to make a decent wage. tenure has some impact on that as well, but they sure as hell arent philanthropists - the overall academic experience would be drastically different if educational professionals were not adequately compensated for their work. there are many other factors at play as well but paying the teachers is a big one.
bottom line - education is expensive & will always remain so. accreditation from cheaper schools is all well and good but for many professions, where you graduated from is just as important as the act of obtaining a degree at all.
in regards to "jobs paying more" - a basic job is going to pay whatever is the lowest it can get away with. if it's too low, no one will accept that job offering & the position will either remain unfilled or the business will offer a higher remuneration. if you lack marketable skills, you are perfectly able to apply for anything you'd like but the chance of you actually gaining that job is laughably low; however, to gain skills one must accrue them - by either working up the ladder, gaining skill via experience, or investment into higher education (which, should be noted doesnt really provide skills, so much as a skillset or framework that the skills can later be integrated into).
PPO has to do with health insurance. not sure what you're referring to