Cancel all student debt.

[Uncle Joe]

Link to tweet

(snip)

Critics of the United States' student debt crisis took aim at loan corporation Sallie Mae on Friday after NBC News reported on a trip the company's executives took over the summer to Hawaii to celebrate record-breaking sales in 2018.

NBC reported Thursday night that more than 100 executives and salespeople used some of the profits raked in from 45 million Americans who collectively owe $1.6 trillion in student loans for an all-expenses-paid retreat in Maui in August.

Sallie Mae lent $5 billion last year to 374,000 borrowers. One in five Americans owe student debt, a crisis which has contributed to many young people delaying or forgoing home ownership, starting a small business, and having a family.

(snip)

Sallie Mae was founded in the 1970s to provide federal student loans, but has since transitioned to a private loan servicer. Critics including the state of Illinois, which sued Sallie Mae in 2017 for deceptive practices, accuse the corporation of using the same subprime lending tactics used by banks before the 2008 financial meltdown—offering loans to people who are unlikely to be able to repay them.

(snip)


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/18/sallie-maes-hawaii-retreat-while-millions-struggle-repay-loans-bolsters-argument

[HelpImSurrounded]

1. ...and I'm one of the lucky ones

I paid 2.5 times the amount of my student loan and still had half to go. I was lucky because my parents bought the loan for me and reduced the interest rate to 3% or I'd still be paying.

I wish I could get that money back from SallieMae with interest. It kept me on a debt track for a long time.

I fully support cancelling all the debt and finding a better way to educate our people.

[Loki Liesmith]

2. Also refund all the money I paid for mine

And everyone else too.

[OKNancy]

5. If parent loans count, I want my $80,000 back

For two children. I am fortunate in one way since my girls are 12 years apart. By the time I got #1 paid, #2 decided to go into a 5 year program. Took 10 years to pay it back. #2 still owes on her part.

[TexasTowelie]

3. Bernie picking winners and losers.

Why should we providing debt relief to students that attended (and hopefully graduated from) college who in general earn more than their counterparts that did not attend college? Those former students have the most capability to pay back their debts over time and supposedly had the wisdom to know the obligation they were agreeing to when they went into debt.

It would also be interesting to know the demographics (racial, ethnic and gender) of the students with debt compared to the overall population.

It doesn't seem fair to ask someone employed in a professional trade who works in harsh working conditions to subsidize the education of someone else who ends up working in an office environment or some other career with very little physical exertion required.

[George II]

7. That's a good way of looking at it. I'm sure many blue collar workers would be upset....

....to learn that their hard-earned taxes were being spent on paying the tuition debt of doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, etc. I'd be pretty pissed off if I were, say, a truck driver, and was being asked to help pay off the tuition loan of Harvard graduates.

This "cancel all student debt" is way oversimplified and not well thought out. Do we cancel all debt just NOW and not going forward? As some in this discussion have pointed out, they paid off their student debt already, why not reimburse them too?

[TexasTowelie]

9. It is difficult for me to fathom that those who align behind Bernie's vision of economic justice

believe that such a proposal as blanket debt relief on student loans is either fair or just. I support Yang's universal basic income proposals before free tuition or student debt forgiveness since everyone gets a slice of the pie.

While I have some sympathy for those who became caught in the fly-by-night professional trade school schemes; hopefully, they will have learned some valuable lessons about reading contracts and evaluating financial considerations for their future. Personally, I never signed a contract, loan, or lease agreement without reading and understanding the commitment that I was making.

[George II]

4. Is that retroactive? Where do I send the bill?

[calguy]

13. I didn't get to go to college, but can he pay my mortgage?

There's got to be something in it for me if Bernie expects to get my vote. I'm not paying everyone else's debt if no one pays mine.

[George II]

15. Only one-third of Americans over 25 have graduated from college....

....and have higher annual salaries than most non-college graduates.

So this is just "wealth redistribution", using the taxes paid by those with less annual pay and giving it to those with higher annual pay. What's "progressive" about that?

[VarryOn]

6. Not only is this a bad idea...

But as this comment thread reveals, it would be very divisive...amongst Democrats, much less the rest of the country.

How would the sociology major that went to Northwestern and is $150,000 in debt be reimbursed versus the education major that went to Northern Illinois and find himself in $12,000 in debt?

I'm all in favor of a policy which incents more useful and needed majors (eg STEM, education, etc) where the govt pays all tuition GOING FORWARD. If the taxpayers pick up the tab, they should get a say for which majors.

[beachbumbob]

8. always an issue with "freebies", will cause lots of discord among democrats. no fairness

[LongtimeAZDem]

10. And a pony!

[George II]

11. Ah, the ol' Seinfeld scene comes to mind!

[BlueMississippi]

12. Election year pandering to get college student vote

Why not pay off people's credit card debt which impoverishes far more people because they are stuck making only the minimum payment to survive?

Or .. why not pay off mortgage debts of people threatened with foreclosure because they can't afford to make the payments?

The whole program is disgusting and a big fuck-you to students who worked 2 or 3 jobs, didn't go partying, didn't go on vacations and lived on beans and ramen noodles to pay off their college debt.

[aidbo]

14. If you want to hear all the right wing arguments against a position,

Post it on “Democratic” Underground!

[Uncle Joe]

16. + all that exists.