> Biden has successfully moved the 10k in student debt from the people who received an education and moved it to the general population at large.
$10,000 / 10,000 people is only $1 per person. That illustrates the benefits of shifting costs to "the population at large" from the "individual alone".
Are you spending that money on (a) food or medical treatments to survive, (b) mortgage/rent, or (c) an education to improve yourself and the society we share? If so, then sure, I'll go first, if you can prove that's what you're using it on.
In fact, I spend far more than $1 a year doing exactly that. It's called donating to charity.
How is it fair that people who got degrees with borrowed money they cannot pay back are to have that burden moved to blue collar workers who went to trade schools or other forms of apprenticeship where they never incurred such debts? Yes, this burden will also fall in high-earners -- both those who did and didn't go to college -- but in proportion it will hit lower-earning tax payers the hardest.
It's fair because the "burden" is much, much less when dividing across an entire population, and education shouldn't be made available only to people with stuffed bank accounts and rich parents.
It's fallacious to think of this as the full impact being transferred to other people. The cost is being transferred, but it's being spread over many, many people, which lowers the impact on everyone.
Not solving the entire problem doesn't mean it's unfair, it just means it's a step in the right direction on a longer journey. Policies like this are a first step towards policies that apply to future generations. If this can show that forgiving loans retroactively -- all the student loans from decades past that are still being repaid -- is feasible, then forgiving loans proactively for future graduates, which is much less cost, is definitely feasible.
It's definitely unfair. I'm currently in college as a non-traditional student who worked my ass off to avoid the debt trap and socially invalidated myself for a half-decade to do so - now not only is my savings dwindling because of price inflation but I'm also being excluded from this one-time forgiveness. I get no benefit from this, nada. I could've pulled loans and speculated on this - I did in fact expect this to happen - but I believe in personal accountability. Instead of entering the workforce ahead the way things are culminating it looks like I'm going to be entering into it indebted because of shit like this.
The only fair move was to remediate the system, this is only going to exacerbate everything already in motion, worse for me, worse for my peers, worse for those forgiven. It does nothing to improve the outcomes of those in the future and everything to worsen them. It's a stupid move to buy votes.
There was a discussion in the democratic party at the beginning of the Biden administration about offering the first two years of community college for free, similar to what’s been done in Tennessee. This plan was scrapped after universities lobbied the democrats out of fear that it would hurt their bottom line- that is, actually make the cost of college more affordable. This is something that would have benefited everyone, especially the working class. That would have been fair. This half measure is most definitely not a “step in the right direction.” Indeed, your suggestion of finding a way to subsidize new loans at lower cost is exactly what has caused the cost of college to explode - which I’m sure would receive the ardent backing of universities in the US.
Science definitely needs a bigger budget. There's some interesting math to do here: if the number $300 billion is an accurate estimate of taxpayer cost, and the quick Google I did on the number of taxpayers in the US is correct at 144.3 million, then that means the average cost to an individual taxpayer is about $2,080/year. Which is 1/7 the cost of my own university/student loan expenses, even after financial aid, grants, scholarships, etc. My local public college is $2,800/year.
In other words, if these numbers are all correct, then the cost to each taxpayer is less than the cost of public college, and much less than the cost of private universities. And when you consider that students at more expensive universities are more likely to have larger student loans, it shifts the average costs being paid off higher, meaning taxpayers are paying much less than people going to college would need to pay.
Obviously this is a simplification, and there are things to consider such as how this is covering everyone who's ever been to college in the US before and hasn't finished paying their loans (as opposed to just the people with new loans, which a policy like this would eventually settle into being).
Too late to edit my previous reply, so I'll just add my correction here: I misunderstood and thought the $300 billion was an annual estimate. Well, not so much "misunderstood" -- that's what the article explicitly says. However, the source they cite for that says, and I quote:
"We estimate that a one-time maximum debt forgiveness of $10,000 per borrower will cost around $300 billion for borrowers with incomes less than $125,000. This cost increases to $330 billion if the program is continued over the standard 10-year budget window. Eliminating the borrower income limit threshold produces a 10-year cost of $344 billion. Increasing the maximum amount forgiven to $50,000 per borrower increases the total cost to as much as $980 billion."
Meaning it's a figure over 10 years. So let's use the main source's numbers instead: $330,000,000,000 / 10 years / 144,300,000 taxpayers = $228 per taxpayer per year. Even better.
And just for fun, let's look at the same calculations using the analysis for "no income cap" and then again for a $50k forgiveness cap:
No income cap: $238 -- only $10 more per person per year.
$50k max forgiveness: $670 per person per year. Obviously more significant, as it's forgiving 1/3 more money on average, but still. Imagine if this policy were put in place for new loans going forward. Everyone in the country could attend college for $670 + tuition excess over $50k, which means most people could do it for $670/year flat.
And of course, these estimates all account for the initial massive cost of existing loans; if it were set in motion to apply to new loans, the cost would decrease over time as those old loans are done and only a smaller number of new loans are created.
Let's hope not, or hope that at least some regulations can be put in place to fix that if it does happen.
Let's be clear what you're suggesting here: universities that are doing well on their current tuition, and would still be making the same money in the case of government subsidies, would spike their tuition costs by $10,000+ / year just for extra profit "because they can", despite not needing to, and screwing over everyone in the process.
I'm not saying it won't happen, I'm just saying that paints a dark picture of humanity and its almost certainly doomed future if it does and isn't corralled.
(BTW, I wonder how the European countries that offer socialized university have countered that effect?)
The majority of voters are good well-meaning people with very little business experience.
The majority of politicians have connections with people who are highly business-informed who know how to parlay corporate profits into well meaning sounding legislation. That creates a win-win in public perception while simultaneously fleecing the public coffers.
Ford is practically half-government at this point. Thinks like CARB and the Chicken Tax are their bread and butter for survival. Regulatory capture and barriers make cost to new entrants sky high. During recessions they rely on government for bail-out.
Government involvement is part of the reason we're here. A college charging more money isn't 'dark'--they too have bills. Attending a college to major in something is an investment which should include a cost/benefit analysis.
> A college charging more money isn't 'dark'--they too have bills.
Which they are currently able to pay. Governments subsidizing student loans doesn't increase the bills for the college.
Of course there should be a cost/benefit analysis. There should be a cost/benefit analysis for any decision. That doesn't mean it's right for the costs to be artificially inflated beyond what's necessary.
This is the fundamental problem with all the "let's set the interest rates to 0% going forward!" arguments too.
Much like a house, nobody really cares about the sticker price, at least as long as it doesn't lose a ton of money. They care about the monthly payment. And even if interest is 0%, you still have a monthly payment for the principal.
(in some ways, college is even worse than houses since at the time of the loan you really don't know what the monthly payment will be at all... it's just magic money. And in fact your payments can heavily vary based on your income (although you'll still accrue interest) and how long you want to pay it back over.)
Setting 0% interest without some fundamental reform of college costs just kicks the can down the road and allows colleges to balloon costs even further since welp, payments are lower now, so you can afford more, right? You always still have to pay that principal though, so it really is just can kicking - at some point costs will balloon enough that 0% interest still has unaffordable payments merely on the principal itself.
I disagree that it will be "instantly" raising tuition but in the long term yeah, eventually any money that you throw at students (grants, loans, 0% loans, loan forgiveness, etc) is going to be swallowed up by colleges as long as they can get away with it.
Fundamentally, cost controls at "state universities" (and similar public institutions) have to be instituted at some point. I don't have a magic wand for how to make schools run more efficiently - administrators seem to be a problem, excessive construction and remodeling seems to be a problem, sports programs seem to be a problem (almost all are run at a huge loss except for colleges that can manage top-10 status in whatever sport). But as a more general statement, colleges are responding to what they think the market wants, and responding to the perception that if they don't, their competition will and they'll lose students. So this is a situation that's pretty ripe for some kind of regulation at public institutions - it's a clear "market failure" where the market is not giving the desired outcome. The public institutions will, in turn, keep a ceiling on the private institutions, and provide a reasonable alternative.
Unfortunately that will require congressional action - much like the "retroactive 0% would be better than $X loan forgiveness for current students!" idea, it simply will never actually get passed so it's not really an option within the current Overton window. And even if democrats proposed it, republicans would simply say no, they are in opposition to ANYTHING that democrats could count as a win or achievement regardless of whether it's right/wrong or good policy (see: burn pit disability).
If only Americans could be radicalized against the systemic inequities in their society and the suffering it causes to their fellow citizens, rather than be radicalized against attempts to correct them, because doing so is unfair to the privileged.
You can't do this here, so we've banned the account.
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This sort of ideological flamewar isn't allowed here, as you know. I don't want to have to ban you, so would you please clean up your act? Otherwise how are we supposed to tell other people it's not ok to post like this?
You made it impossible for me to ban the other account in this thread, even though it broke the site guidelines egregiously. That's not cool. Having been here a long time doesn't give an account free vandalism cards.
I wouldn't generalize from it - certainly not into some simple rule. And I'm a bit confused because I banned you but not immigrantheart or krapp, and my sandblasted memory doesn't go back 3 days. Most likely I saw your post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32593415 in some other context (for example reviewing a list of flagged posts) and didn't realize it was from this thread.
It doesn't feel fair to ban you from this thread after posting https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32598207, so I'm going to unban you (even though that comment was about immigrantheart and not you).
As for the question you were curious about: when two accounts are breaking the site guidelines badly in a spat, it's much easier to ban both accounts - people instinctively react like "well, I might not agree with him but at least he's being fair". If we only ban one account and leave the other unbanned even though they were breaking the site guidelines just as badly, the bar for community acceptance is much higher, because people instinctively feel like it's unfair and we're taking a side—even if there really is a good reason and it has nothing to do with taking a side.
I use the word "instinctively" on purpose because we all have these reactions, including small children, and of course they've been observed in other primates. It's a strong force and much easier to go with it than to fight it.
It does not follow that there's some sort of general rule about never banning just one account in an argument (we still do that often enough), and I would hope that if anyone tried to exploit the above as some sort of loophole, we'd eventually catch that and ban them for it.
One other thing to realize is that we mostly ban accounts for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines, and most accounts that do that have a tendency to keep doing it. So if we don't ban them in one context, there will likely be another bannable offense soon enough—and if not, that's great anyhow and we don't need to ben them. We only ban accounts because of their expected future behavior.
> What's the point of working hard? What's the point of making decisions, responsible decisions in my past, what's the point of studying day and nights, skipping parties, skipping fun, but working and studying to provide for my family?
So... your assumption is "if other people aren't forced to pay ridiculous amounts of money for education, that put that education out of reach of entire populations, then there's no point putting effort into anything"?
Working hard should be done for (a) personal growth and (b) to provide for others. It should not be done to pay off punishing costs that shouldn't exist in the first place. That's just what it's forced to be done for in our society, and that's what needs steps to fix.
You think this forgiveness helps those who need help the most? Seriously? How many poor people this helps instead of helping those middle class kids who spend $100 every other day to party? I know because I live in an expensive city and see these people on my circle.
Please look up the term "sampling bias". You have an inaccurate, biased understanding of why the majority of student loan debt happens. Your sample is too small and not representative of the country's overall population. Especially if you live in an expensive area, as you said, you are only seeing how "people who can afford to live in your expensive area" handle student loans.
So, the government got involved in student loans, encouraged people who should have entered trades to get irrelevant degrees, significantly inflated the cost of tuition, and is now not only rewarding poor decisions and debt, but is making others pay for it?
This is egregious vote buying during a period of high inflation!
And who making $125K needs a $10K discount on their loans!? A friend intentionally stopped paying his a while back in anticipation. What a joke.
> So, the government got involved in student loans, encouraged people who should have entered trades to get irrelevant degrees, significantly inflated the cost of tuition, and is now not only rewarding poor decisions and debt, but is making others pay for it?
If 10,000 people pay $1 each, none of them have any problems. If one person pays $10,000, it's a big problem, and possibly even life-ruining or inaccessible. "Making others pay for it" is a skewed perspective on what's really happening when taxes pay for public services, or services that should be public.
Speaking of "should be public" -- who are you to decide whether other people "should have entered trades" instead of attending university? Many people don't attend higher education because they can't afford it, and you're basically saying that means they just should go straight to work and shouldn't even try to get an education?
> And who making $125K needs a $10K discount on their loans!? A friend intentionally stopped paying his a while back in anticipation. What a joke.
If your friend was affording his payments, then it sounds like your friend is a selfish dick.
To answer your question: many people. I'm not at $125k, but I left college with $60k in debt, and I didn't even attend the top tier of costly schools, and I had grants to lower that amount. I'm making $80k now, and if you compare those numbers, it might seem like that's no big deal -- 80 > 60 after all, right? But then you subtract income taxes, and my disposable income is actually closer to $52k. Then you subtract my expenses which are more important than paying off student loan debt -- food, water, electricity, phone bill, mortgage, and internet (which I need for my job at least) -- and account for interest accrual... I'm 7 years out of college and I'll be paying those loans for at least another decade or two.
So the answer is "probably quite a few people", especially when you consider the correlation between better university education (i.e. more expensive) and higher-paying jobs.
Since my subsidized loans had interest well below inflation, I decided to pay the absolute minimum possible payment on them for last 9 years. In that time, they have lost 37% of their real value just through inflation alone.
I always felt bad for my friends who insisted on paying off their loans as soon as possible. And now, mine are about to disappear completely for free!
Ah, yes, the American Dream: success is all about hard work, therefore unsuccessful people just aren't working hard enough. So the only people who benefit from policies like these are irresponsible people who didn't work hard enough and now want "goodies".
It is implicitly true. There used to be an informal social contract that the dollar had value, that the government would protect this value, and that there would be a free market that would provide a time value of money.
Governments, businesses, individuals and reckless borrowers of all stripes - not just students - have been massively rewarded by our current policies from both the left and the right where there is no longer accountability. We make money free so the market doesn't crash. This is so sad and leads to the cynicism and distrust so many of us have towards our institutions today.
Because no matter how much the dollar depreciates, the amount of debt itself always increases, and the actual dollar amount of the debt is what people pay. The fact that $50,000 in debt is worth 10% less than $50,000 x years ago does not mean $5,000 of that debt was "forgiven."
And even if that were the case, then interest on that debt would easily cancel the effect out, since interest far outstrips inflation on many student loans.
Arguing that student loans are "forgiven" and that no action needs to be taken because deflation is solving the problem, despite the crushing weight of that debt on so many borrowers even when they're trying to work it off, is twisted logic.
> actual dollar amount of the debt is what people pay
Exactly right! A loan is a time capsule of prices. Wouldn't you rather buy a house 30 years ago than right now?
> interest far outstrips inflation on many student loans
Maybe on some, but not on the federally subsidized student loans we are talking about here. My interest is something like 2.25% (not including the 2 years payments have been frozen). Even when inflation was pretty stagnant, you would be hard pressed to find many years below that.
Consider an extreme example. You take out a $300,000 loan to buy a house. The next day, there's suddenly hyperinflation and now $300,000 is the average price of a meal, or less than most people earn in an hour. You basically got a free house.
No, to be more accurate, it shifted the cost onto many other people. And that's an important distinction, because when you divide a large number by a large number, you get a small number.
Think of it with this simplified example, using numbers that are easier to grok. Let's say I've got a school where tuition costs $1,000. Alice cannot afford that on her own. But there are 1,000 people in her country, so if taxes paid for that tuition, each person only needs to pay $1 extra in taxes for Alice to get a quality education. Of course, it's not just Alice going to college, but it's also not every person in the country. In fact, at any given time, most taxpaying people in a country are not attending university, since university is usually only 4-6 years and most people live to age 78 or higher.
So to adjust the example to account for that, let's just assume every member of this society of 1,000 people attended or will attend university (an overestimate for sure). Using the ages as a guideline for proportions, if 60% are above age 18, and at most 8% are currently in college (6 years at college / 78 years of life), then we can easily see how much each taxpayer must pay for everyone to get an education: (80 people * $1,000) / 600 taxpayers = $133-ish.
So you tell me which is a better society: one in which everyone gets a good education for about $130, or one in which some people can't afford a good education because it costs about 7.5x as much money?
No it's that it's pointless for me to respond to someone who responds to an objective truthful fact with a 'no' along with a bunch of handwaving about providing an education for $130.
...If you read past the first two letters, you'd see that I explained why what you said is not an "objective, truthful fact", but a misrepresentation of the actual facts.
Or you can read a single word, ignore the rest, and tell yourself you're superior without actually knowing what I said shrug
Also, thank you for reminding me that mathematics is "handwaving". It's good to remember that math is useless and doesn't actually show anything real. We may as well not teach it at all in schools, since it's all just "handwaving".
Here, if you prefer specific, actual numbers rather than an example of the concept, I will do your homework for you.
There are 144.3 million taxpayers in the US, and 329.5 million people. Using the still-accurate numbers of 8% of the population being in college at any given time, and the average college tuition in the US of $8,000/year, we can do the same calculation:
In other words, by subsidizing higher education with taxes, every person in the country could attend college for about 1/5 the cost, as opposed to "only people who can afford at least $8,000/year can attend college, and it costs them 5x as much as it otherwise would."
Those are real numbers. Does that make it feel less "hand-waving" to you?
So I go to college. The real cost is $8000/year. That's $32,000 in cost for 4 year degree.
Then I pay $1461.40 in taxes a year for 40 years (we'll control inflation at 0%, otherwise both my income and tuition rises) while I'm working, assuming I retire at ~62 which is fairly typical. I just paid $58,440 for $32000 of college. This is a good deal why? I was better off when no one was helping me.
Because while you're getting the benefit, you're not the only one benefiting. The benefit applies to you as well as to everyone else. So your calculation should be "I paid $58,440 in taxes, but I saved $32,000 on tuition for myself, so I actually only paid $26,440 to help everyone else in the country get the same $32,000 education that I did."
Why do you live in a society, where you depend on other people, if you're not willing to help those who depend on you?
I see, this isn't about making things better for the working stiff. Everybody in your plan goes to college, so this includes the janitor and trash man too who is paying $58k for a $32k education.
No this isn't about making college more affordable for the regular working stiff (it actually does the opposite). It's about enforcing your favored version of charity at the gun point of taxes.
>so I actually only paid $26,440 to help
I don't understand, what's stopping you from doing that now? Just go to some university's school tour as part of a group of potential students and offer somebody $26k for tuition. You'll find a taker. Your dream can become a reality and it doesn't even involve you convincing 51% of the population/reps to vote for it.
I regret paying my loans off as quickly as I could. Should have just made the minimum payments and waited for my bailout.
Where does personal responsibly even start anymore? I would like retroactive payment to the tune of $10,000. I delayed buying a house, or a new car, and several other indulge items; so I could be debt free.
Nothing about this is for people. Its deeply political and fails to address any of the actual issues with higher education in the US.
A while ago I worked in retail while going to school. One of my coworkers purposely stayed below the poverty level so she could receive free government support. She also only had another 8 years before her loans would be forgive at the 20 year mark by maintaining a lower income. During the part of the year she wasn't working she would backpack around India on money she saved.
It’s incredible how negative these comments are. This is not a significant burden on taxpayers, this is a relief to those that need it. If you are seeing this news and reacting negatively, it’s time to step back and think about the bigger picture.
The US wastes an incredible amount of money though corruption, inefficient budgets, programs, and poor taxing, all while frequently bending to corporate and wealthy individuals’ interests. This forgiveness program is far from perfect but it’s the best attempt in a while of large reaching positive impact for normal people. Nobody should be claiming this solves the underlying issue of the price of education, but it acts as a bandaid for people still suffering from their debt. It is a good first step and shows relatively good faith. The $10k-$20k is great for those that get it, but the big benefit is the limits placed on interest for loans that are otherwise crippling people.
It is clear this is to buy peoples votes for midterms, but it’s also following through on promises made repeatedly to the public. Why would you not wait to make an action as impactful as possible? There are plenty of good faith arguments saying that this action is not enough or doesn’t solve the problem directly, but it’s ridiculous to oppose such an impactful plan that is genuinely giving relief to people that need it. If you’re stuck on how high the limit is (125k single / 250k married), it’s also important to remember that the cost of living varies wildly between different parts of the US.
There are too many arguments in both good and bad faith to refute, but overall this is having a good impact on a lot of people. If this doesn’t affect you, or you just paid off your loans and feel bitter, it’s important to remember that you have overcome an obstacle that many people don’t have the same privilege of overcoming for whatever reason, and just be happy for them to have a win for once.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 146 ms ] threadA review of this appears to state that it will by far benefit the mid-level income/high-income (up to 125k/250k) earners the most.
This puts the burden of this on low income earners and introduces additional income during a time of historic price inflation.
I have no idea what I can say.
$10,000 / 10,000 people is only $1 per person. That illustrates the benefits of shifting costs to "the population at large" from the "individual alone".
In fact, I spend far more than $1 a year doing exactly that. It's called donating to charity.
It's fallacious to think of this as the full impact being transferred to other people. The cost is being transferred, but it's being spread over many, many people, which lowers the impact on everyone.
The only fair move was to remediate the system, this is only going to exacerbate everything already in motion, worse for me, worse for my peers, worse for those forgiven. It does nothing to improve the outcomes of those in the future and everything to worsen them. It's a stupid move to buy votes.
At least this benefits people directly and is a fraction of the money printed the last few years that went to who knows where.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/student-loan-forgiveness-10000-...
The next time we question if the science projects are worth the cost…
Webb Telescope cost: $10 billion
CERN particle accelerator cost: $5 billion
Sort of emphasizes the point that the science projects are cheap.
Science pays future dividend.
In other words, if these numbers are all correct, then the cost to each taxpayer is less than the cost of public college, and much less than the cost of private universities. And when you consider that students at more expensive universities are more likely to have larger student loans, it shifts the average costs being paid off higher, meaning taxpayers are paying much less than people going to college would need to pay.
Obviously this is a simplification, and there are things to consider such as how this is covering everyone who's ever been to college in the US before and hasn't finished paying their loans (as opposed to just the people with new loans, which a policy like this would eventually settle into being).
"We estimate that a one-time maximum debt forgiveness of $10,000 per borrower will cost around $300 billion for borrowers with incomes less than $125,000. This cost increases to $330 billion if the program is continued over the standard 10-year budget window. Eliminating the borrower income limit threshold produces a 10-year cost of $344 billion. Increasing the maximum amount forgiven to $50,000 per borrower increases the total cost to as much as $980 billion."
Meaning it's a figure over 10 years. So let's use the main source's numbers instead: $330,000,000,000 / 10 years / 144,300,000 taxpayers = $228 per taxpayer per year. Even better.
And just for fun, let's look at the same calculations using the analysis for "no income cap" and then again for a $50k forgiveness cap:
No income cap: $238 -- only $10 more per person per year.
$50k max forgiveness: $670 per person per year. Obviously more significant, as it's forgiving 1/3 more money on average, but still. Imagine if this policy were put in place for new loans going forward. Everyone in the country could attend college for $670 + tuition excess over $50k, which means most people could do it for $670/year flat.
And of course, these estimates all account for the initial massive cost of existing loans; if it were set in motion to apply to new loans, the cost would decrease over time as those old loans are done and only a smaller number of new loans are created.
Let's be clear what you're suggesting here: universities that are doing well on their current tuition, and would still be making the same money in the case of government subsidies, would spike their tuition costs by $10,000+ / year just for extra profit "because they can", despite not needing to, and screwing over everyone in the process.
I'm not saying it won't happen, I'm just saying that paints a dark picture of humanity and its almost certainly doomed future if it does and isn't corralled.
(BTW, I wonder how the European countries that offer socialized university have countered that effect?)
That's literally why college is so damned expensive to begin with.
Of course they're going to raise prices because they can - that's literally how every business works.
The majority of politicians have connections with people who are highly business-informed who know how to parlay corporate profits into well meaning sounding legislation. That creates a win-win in public perception while simultaneously fleecing the public coffers.
I do not expect this trend to end.
Then perhaps you've hit upon the root of the problem: education shouldn't be run like a business.
Government involvement is part of the reason we're here. A college charging more money isn't 'dark'--they too have bills. Attending a college to major in something is an investment which should include a cost/benefit analysis.
Which they are currently able to pay. Governments subsidizing student loans doesn't increase the bills for the college.
Of course there should be a cost/benefit analysis. There should be a cost/benefit analysis for any decision. That doesn't mean it's right for the costs to be artificially inflated beyond what's necessary.
Much like a house, nobody really cares about the sticker price, at least as long as it doesn't lose a ton of money. They care about the monthly payment. And even if interest is 0%, you still have a monthly payment for the principal.
(in some ways, college is even worse than houses since at the time of the loan you really don't know what the monthly payment will be at all... it's just magic money. And in fact your payments can heavily vary based on your income (although you'll still accrue interest) and how long you want to pay it back over.)
Setting 0% interest without some fundamental reform of college costs just kicks the can down the road and allows colleges to balloon costs even further since welp, payments are lower now, so you can afford more, right? You always still have to pay that principal though, so it really is just can kicking - at some point costs will balloon enough that 0% interest still has unaffordable payments merely on the principal itself.
I disagree that it will be "instantly" raising tuition but in the long term yeah, eventually any money that you throw at students (grants, loans, 0% loans, loan forgiveness, etc) is going to be swallowed up by colleges as long as they can get away with it.
Fundamentally, cost controls at "state universities" (and similar public institutions) have to be instituted at some point. I don't have a magic wand for how to make schools run more efficiently - administrators seem to be a problem, excessive construction and remodeling seems to be a problem, sports programs seem to be a problem (almost all are run at a huge loss except for colleges that can manage top-10 status in whatever sport). But as a more general statement, colleges are responding to what they think the market wants, and responding to the perception that if they don't, their competition will and they'll lose students. So this is a situation that's pretty ripe for some kind of regulation at public institutions - it's a clear "market failure" where the market is not giving the desired outcome. The public institutions will, in turn, keep a ceiling on the private institutions, and provide a reasonable alternative.
Unfortunately that will require congressional action - much like the "retroactive 0% would be better than $X loan forgiveness for current students!" idea, it simply will never actually get passed so it's not really an option within the current Overton window. And even if democrats proposed it, republicans would simply say no, they are in opposition to ANYTHING that democrats could count as a win or achievement regardless of whether it's right/wrong or good policy (see: burn pit disability).
Ah well. Have fun becoming the Joker I guess.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You made it impossible for me to ban the other account in this thread, even though it broke the site guidelines egregiously. That's not cool. Having been here a long time doesn't give an account free vandalism cards.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> You made it impossible for me to ban the other account in this thread
So breaking rules is ok if someone bigger does it after you?
It doesn't feel fair to ban you from this thread after posting https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32598207, so I'm going to unban you (even though that comment was about immigrantheart and not you).
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not posting things like "lay off the adderall dumbass" in the future, we'd appreciate it.
As for the question you were curious about: when two accounts are breaking the site guidelines badly in a spat, it's much easier to ban both accounts - people instinctively react like "well, I might not agree with him but at least he's being fair". If we only ban one account and leave the other unbanned even though they were breaking the site guidelines just as badly, the bar for community acceptance is much higher, because people instinctively feel like it's unfair and we're taking a side—even if there really is a good reason and it has nothing to do with taking a side.
I use the word "instinctively" on purpose because we all have these reactions, including small children, and of course they've been observed in other primates. It's a strong force and much easier to go with it than to fight it.
It does not follow that there's some sort of general rule about never banning just one account in an argument (we still do that often enough), and I would hope that if anyone tried to exploit the above as some sort of loophole, we'd eventually catch that and ban them for it.
One other thing to realize is that we mostly ban accounts for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines, and most accounts that do that have a tendency to keep doing it. So if we don't ban them in one context, there will likely be another bannable offense soon enough—and if not, that's great anyhow and we don't need to ben them. We only ban accounts because of their expected future behavior.
So... your assumption is "if other people aren't forced to pay ridiculous amounts of money for education, that put that education out of reach of entire populations, then there's no point putting effort into anything"?
Working hard should be done for (a) personal growth and (b) to provide for others. It should not be done to pay off punishing costs that shouldn't exist in the first place. That's just what it's forced to be done for in our society, and that's what needs steps to fix.
This is egregious vote buying during a period of high inflation!
And who making $125K needs a $10K discount on their loans!? A friend intentionally stopped paying his a while back in anticipation. What a joke.
If 10,000 people pay $1 each, none of them have any problems. If one person pays $10,000, it's a big problem, and possibly even life-ruining or inaccessible. "Making others pay for it" is a skewed perspective on what's really happening when taxes pay for public services, or services that should be public.
Speaking of "should be public" -- who are you to decide whether other people "should have entered trades" instead of attending university? Many people don't attend higher education because they can't afford it, and you're basically saying that means they just should go straight to work and shouldn't even try to get an education?
> And who making $125K needs a $10K discount on their loans!? A friend intentionally stopped paying his a while back in anticipation. What a joke.
If your friend was affording his payments, then it sounds like your friend is a selfish dick.
To answer your question: many people. I'm not at $125k, but I left college with $60k in debt, and I didn't even attend the top tier of costly schools, and I had grants to lower that amount. I'm making $80k now, and if you compare those numbers, it might seem like that's no big deal -- 80 > 60 after all, right? But then you subtract income taxes, and my disposable income is actually closer to $52k. Then you subtract my expenses which are more important than paying off student loan debt -- food, water, electricity, phone bill, mortgage, and internet (which I need for my job at least) -- and account for interest accrual... I'm 7 years out of college and I'll be paying those loans for at least another decade or two.
So the answer is "probably quite a few people", especially when you consider the correlation between better university education (i.e. more expensive) and higher-paying jobs.
Since my subsidized loans had interest well below inflation, I decided to pay the absolute minimum possible payment on them for last 9 years. In that time, they have lost 37% of their real value just through inflation alone.
I always felt bad for my friends who insisted on paying off their loans as soon as possible. And now, mine are about to disappear completely for free!
The way to a happy and successful life today is to make sure never to work hard at anything so that you qualify for all the goodies
No matter how many threads you say this in, it isn't going to be true.
Governments, businesses, individuals and reckless borrowers of all stripes - not just students - have been massively rewarded by our current policies from both the left and the right where there is no longer accountability. We make money free so the market doesn't crash. This is so sad and leads to the cynicism and distrust so many of us have towards our institutions today.
And even if that were the case, then interest on that debt would easily cancel the effect out, since interest far outstrips inflation on many student loans.
Arguing that student loans are "forgiven" and that no action needs to be taken because deflation is solving the problem, despite the crushing weight of that debt on so many borrowers even when they're trying to work it off, is twisted logic.
Exactly right! A loan is a time capsule of prices. Wouldn't you rather buy a house 30 years ago than right now?
> interest far outstrips inflation on many student loans
Maybe on some, but not on the federally subsidized student loans we are talking about here. My interest is something like 2.25% (not including the 2 years payments have been frozen). Even when inflation was pretty stagnant, you would be hard pressed to find many years below that.
in my country edu is free unless you want to study on weekends (so you can work during the week)
people shouldn't have to get into debt to get higher edu (and very often not even at top1 institutions)
Think of it with this simplified example, using numbers that are easier to grok. Let's say I've got a school where tuition costs $1,000. Alice cannot afford that on her own. But there are 1,000 people in her country, so if taxes paid for that tuition, each person only needs to pay $1 extra in taxes for Alice to get a quality education. Of course, it's not just Alice going to college, but it's also not every person in the country. In fact, at any given time, most taxpaying people in a country are not attending university, since university is usually only 4-6 years and most people live to age 78 or higher.
So to adjust the example to account for that, let's just assume every member of this society of 1,000 people attended or will attend university (an overestimate for sure). Using the ages as a guideline for proportions, if 60% are above age 18, and at most 8% are currently in college (6 years at college / 78 years of life), then we can easily see how much each taxpayer must pay for everyone to get an education: (80 people * $1,000) / 600 taxpayers = $133-ish.
So you tell me which is a better society: one in which everyone gets a good education for about $130, or one in which some people can't afford a good education because it costs about 7.5x as much money?
>No, ...
I rest my defense.
Or you can read a single word, ignore the rest, and tell yourself you're superior without actually knowing what I said shrug
Also, thank you for reminding me that mathematics is "handwaving". It's good to remember that math is useless and doesn't actually show anything real. We may as well not teach it at all in schools, since it's all just "handwaving".
There are 144.3 million taxpayers in the US, and 329.5 million people. Using the still-accurate numbers of 8% of the population being in college at any given time, and the average college tuition in the US of $8,000/year, we can do the same calculation:
(0.08 * 329,500,000 people * $8,000/yr) / (144,300,000 taxpayers) = $1461.40.
In other words, by subsidizing higher education with taxes, every person in the country could attend college for about 1/5 the cost, as opposed to "only people who can afford at least $8,000/year can attend college, and it costs them 5x as much as it otherwise would."
Those are real numbers. Does that make it feel less "hand-waving" to you?
Then I pay $1461.40 in taxes a year for 40 years (we'll control inflation at 0%, otherwise both my income and tuition rises) while I'm working, assuming I retire at ~62 which is fairly typical. I just paid $58,440 for $32000 of college. This is a good deal why? I was better off when no one was helping me.
Why do you live in a society, where you depend on other people, if you're not willing to help those who depend on you?
No this isn't about making college more affordable for the regular working stiff (it actually does the opposite). It's about enforcing your favored version of charity at the gun point of taxes.
>so I actually only paid $26,440 to help
I don't understand, what's stopping you from doing that now? Just go to some university's school tour as part of a group of potential students and offer somebody $26k for tuition. You'll find a taker. Your dream can become a reality and it doesn't even involve you convincing 51% of the population/reps to vote for it.
Where does personal responsibly even start anymore? I would like retroactive payment to the tune of $10,000. I delayed buying a house, or a new car, and several other indulge items; so I could be debt free.
Nothing about this is for people. Its deeply political and fails to address any of the actual issues with higher education in the US.
A while ago I worked in retail while going to school. One of my coworkers purposely stayed below the poverty level so she could receive free government support. She also only had another 8 years before her loans would be forgive at the 20 year mark by maintaining a lower income. During the part of the year she wasn't working she would backpack around India on money she saved.
The US wastes an incredible amount of money though corruption, inefficient budgets, programs, and poor taxing, all while frequently bending to corporate and wealthy individuals’ interests. This forgiveness program is far from perfect but it’s the best attempt in a while of large reaching positive impact for normal people. Nobody should be claiming this solves the underlying issue of the price of education, but it acts as a bandaid for people still suffering from their debt. It is a good first step and shows relatively good faith. The $10k-$20k is great for those that get it, but the big benefit is the limits placed on interest for loans that are otherwise crippling people.
It is clear this is to buy peoples votes for midterms, but it’s also following through on promises made repeatedly to the public. Why would you not wait to make an action as impactful as possible? There are plenty of good faith arguments saying that this action is not enough or doesn’t solve the problem directly, but it’s ridiculous to oppose such an impactful plan that is genuinely giving relief to people that need it. If you’re stuck on how high the limit is (125k single / 250k married), it’s also important to remember that the cost of living varies wildly between different parts of the US.
There are too many arguments in both good and bad faith to refute, but overall this is having a good impact on a lot of people. If this doesn’t affect you, or you just paid off your loans and feel bitter, it’s important to remember that you have overcome an obstacle that many people don’t have the same privilege of overcoming for whatever reason, and just be happy for them to have a win for once.