Should We Forgive Student Debt?

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Should We Forgive Student Debt?

I'm excited to share a special bonus episode of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie. It's a debate about forgiving student loan, debt organized and produced by the good folks at Intelligence Squared US, America's leading platform for fair, balanced, informed debate on all the leading issues of the day. I've been involved with them for years, including participating in debates on drug legalization, Medicare for All, Net Neutrality, and today's show about student loans (which originally took place in March 2021).

In the interests of transparency, you should know that this is a paid promotion. But I'm happy to share this Intelligence Squared US debate not just because I'm one of the debaters, but because it's modeling exactly what we need more of: deeply informed and civil arguments over what sorts of policies we need to help make our country the best it can be.

They're doing great stuff over at Intelligence Squared by bringing reason and passion to controversial topics and presenting all sides fairly and creatively. The debates are done "Oxford style," which means the winner is the team that persuades more people to its side. That adds drama and excitement to each debate.

The moderator is John Donvan, a legendary, award-winning journalist who doesn't let anyone get away with cheap shots or slippery language. I always learn a ton, whether I'm just listening to or participating in one of the debates. It's a terrific series that reaches back years and covers just about every topic you can imagine and you can access it all by subscribing to their podcast feed or by going over to their website, where they also have video and a ton of links and supporting materials so you can do your own research and come to your own conclusions.

And now, without further ado, here's a great debate from Intelligence Squared, Should We Forgive Student Debt? If you want to check out the video version, transcript, and background about all the participants, go here.

Comments

[Longtobefree]

"WE" won't be forgiving anything. "WE" will be taxed to pay for (often useless) degrees for people who took on the debt willingly.
This is clear transfer payment from the middle class workers to the rich upper class.
To the barricades!

[ubktech]

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[TJJ2000]

[phone]

[Caltrop0]

Instead of forgiving student loans, how about converting them to simple interest loans. That way, much of the money borrowers pay as interest would go toward the principal. In the end, the loans would would more easily be paid back by the borrowers and they wouldn't be enslaved to bank interest.

[Sarcasmic’s Welfare Caseworker]

Because the president lacks the authority to modify or cancel contracts unilaterally.

[901Tiger]

He also lacks the authority to cancel them. These loans are underwritten by the Federal Government. Cancelling them by the Executive Branch is illegal. That would be an unauthorized expenditure not duly authorized by Congress. ALL spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives!!!

[Groucho Marx]

Well, shame on you! You wouldn't forgive the student loan to AOC who is starving on her $173K salary? And all those students with the major in lesbian dance theory will be the driving force of our future! They ARE our future. Scary, isn't it? Where else could we find "disinformation experts" like Nina Jankowitz aka "Scary Poppins"?
And redistribution is an ugly word. You're supposed to say that "rich have to pay their fair share". You are probably one of those who think that the extremism in defense of liberty is no vice and that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. You must be a baby boomer, aren't you? I know that I am (born in 1961). Very few among the younger generations have heard of Barry Goldwater.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

You mean will I be willing to cover someone else's loan that they will no longer have to pay back?

[Sarcasmic’s Welfare Caseworker]

The answer should be 100% ‘fuck no’ In fact, if they do this, it should be the catalyst for an uprising to remove the democrats.

[sarcasmic]

This is the part where the conservative trolls put their fingers in their ears and scream "Reason wants to forgive student loans! They voted for Biden!" over and over and over and over.

[R Mac]

Lose your job or something, sarc? You seem extra bitchy today.

[sarcasmic]

You mom stood me up.

[Don't look at me!]

Why wouldn’t she?

[R Mac]

It’s funny he thought that was a good retort. Not haha funny, but sad funny.

[JesseAz]

He has been bitchy for a few weeks. Probably broke again and had to go back to popov.

[R Mac]

Inflation effects poor people the most.

[JesseAz]

Very good point. But he just bought a new house on credit from the car dealer. So should be happy.

[R Mac]

Lol what?

[JesseAz]

His financial advice eagerly spread this year was to buy a new car on cheaper credit before rates went up even though inflation had gone up 22% for new cars on the last 6 months.

And he has been homeless by his own admission.

A+B=Joke.

But now it is explained ='(

[R Mac]

Hey, you never know what crazy shit sarc might claim. I could see him saying he got a mortgage through a car dealership.

[Don't look at me!]

You’ve seen those campers on the backs of pickup trucks.

[R Mac]

I have one!

Hey sarc, you need a place to stay, I’ll loan you my camper.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

Almost all the liberal democrats are in a foul mood these days. No matter how much lipstick they try to put on the pig, deep down inside they know full well that their team is failing catastrophically.

[CE]

Maybe Australia swinging even further left will cheer them up.
Voters apparently thought the COVID crackdowns weren't harsh enough.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

And they pretend to be worried about becoming a province of China.

[Sarcasmic’s Welfare Caseworker]

He’s never held a job, now he’s angry most of his benefits will eventually run out. He just keeps raving about how ‘Biden’s gonna give us more. Only” and how things will change when DeSantis is gone. I then remind him that we’re not in Florida.

He doesn’t know. He’s usually running about a .40-.45 BAC.

[Sarcasmic’s Welfare Caseworker]

Do we need to set an appointment to review your anger issues again?

[Rich]

How about a pilot program, say easing into it by forgiving income tax debt?

[Minadin]

I think it might be fine to take a percentage of a federal student loan holder's annual federal income taxes paid and count it as paying their federally-held debt. What should that percentage be? 10? 25? 50? Not sure.

It would likely be better in the long run for both students and the rest of us to scale back these programs enormously. It's one of the primary factors in the cost of tuition, and how much it's scaled upwards in the last 30 years or so.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Why the fuck? They borrowed it, willingly. I'd love to be able to palm off 10,25,50% of a new car loan on taxpayers. Why should I be able to?

No no no.

[Minadin]

The argument that I could see for this is that, by subsidizing the loans, you are increasing their earning ability, and therefore they will be more productive and pay more taxes over the course of their tax-paying years. So, it's a net win, theoretically.

I'm not advocating for this. I think that we should scale back the whole federal loan thing A LOT and only give it to the most academically and financially neediest students, if at all.

[Stuck in California]

Fuck their earning ability.

I didn't go deep into debt for college. If I'd gone into debt, gotten out in 4 years or, better yet, gotten an MBA, I could have had more years as a higher earner and far greater career choices, but I weighed being in debt against that and didn't do it that way.

If I'd known I'd be able to just walk away from those loans, I'd have chosen differently.

You don't get to change the rules of the game after the play without fucking someone and, frankly, you're fucking me. Taking my taxes for someone else, but not compensating me in any way. Talk about perverse incentives! They get the increased earning ability of their degrees, they can pay the loan back. Otherwise, those of us who didn't go into debt and paid off our loans already are likely to spend our tax dollars on torches and pitchforks instead.

[BillyG]

I'll give another side to support you.

I did go into debt for my degree. I sacrificed to pay it off. Why should these idiots get off without paying? Why is it Democrats are trying to reward bad decision-making?

[Stuck in California]

Rewarding bad actors while punishing the good. We shouldn't be wondering if paying your debt was the correct thing to do.

Remember the housing crisis after 2008?

Somehow they made it so the people who committed the fraud, the forgery (robosigning was forgery, period), and all of the financial malfeasance got access to essentially free money, which they never lent to regular humans. So normal people couldn't buy a house in '12 while foreign interests and REITS were buying up bargain inventory with cash because they had access to cheap capital.

Stupidity should hurt. Good decisions should be applauded.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

"Why is it Democrats are trying to reward bad decision-making?"

Do you really have to ask?

[Overt]

But it is Win:Win SiC, so you are irrational to protest it.

[Stuck in California]

Win, WIn, Lose.

And I lose.

There's no altruism here. I mean, I genuinely DO think that it's bad for society, but this isn't about society. It's about me, and everyone like me, who thought they were being responsible.

So it's not rational, it's visceral. Emotional. Pitchfork stabbing and torch waving look extra good when you do it with feeling.

[Overt]

No I am referring to the godawful study synopsis that Bailey did last night.

https://reason.com/2022/05/20/privileged-people-oppose-even-win-win-pro-equality-policies-says-new-study/?comments=true#comment-9504849

This is a perfect example of why those studies were bs.

[Stuck in California]

I hadn't read that shite yet.

And it is. Complete shit. Right from the beginning, what does someone's race have to do with any of this? It almost makes the assumption that the reason fewer hispanics having mortgages is specifically and solely because of their race, if "latino" is a race. Like they go into the bank and get turned away because their skin isn't pale enough.

I can think of a hundred confounding factors regarding who gets a mortgage, yet I cannot imagine a single one that says "We won't lend to someone who has a Mexican sounding last name."

For the most part, good mortgage lending should just mean lending to people who can afford to pay it back, and, frankly, there's no limitation on mortgage money. Banks can issue, literally, as many mortgages as they can sell because they don't carry them on their own books, they dump them off to the feds and just work as the servicer. If you can afford a mortgage, and your finances are right, you can get a mortgage. There is NO scarcity here outside of the cost of houses in the first place. It is not a zero sum game. Just... everything is wrong with this survey.

I would rail against that, too. Holy shit what a terrible example to consider "win-win". Who is that writer? Is he fucking retarded?

[NOYB2]

There is no “win:win”. These are deadbeats who will never pay net taxes, because if they could, they could also pay back their student loans.

The money should be recovered from the universities that granted them their overpriced useless degrees.

[NOYB2]

Obviously, if they can’t pay back their student loans, they have no significant earning ability.

Right now, they are forced to repay at least an income based amount, which amounts to a slightly higher income tax, still far below European levels. That seems like the least we can demand.

[Sarcasmic’s Welfare Caseworker]

How about a pilot program easing into it. Like only sending 50-60 democrat officials to firing squads instead of all of them.

[Minadin]

Monthly or annually?

[JasonAZ]

Annually, for sure.

[Sarcasmic’s Welfare Caseworker]

I was going to say weekly……..

[creech]

One of the news shows did a story on student debt last week. A woman was on whining that she'd never be able to pay off her $280.000 student debt from getting her Penn State degree.
$280,000! A year at public PSU, with room, board, etc. etc. might run $35-40K at most. Even if she financed 100% of the degree, she'd be far short of $280K. Oh, then she said something like "if I were to start paying this off, I'd have to give up some of my traveling."

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

NPR used to be particularly bad at finding sympathetic characters with these stories.

[JesseAz]

One of the white house aides that made this personal for Biden had 500k in student loans. Fuck them.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

Per PSU's site, out of state is $53K with room/board. Gonna bet she was in graduate school.

[BillyG]

Graduate school can be cheaper than undergrad. I'm betting it's 4 years plus interest during those years.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

You need to look up NYU film school MFA.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Oh, then she said something like "if I were to start paying this off, I'd have to give up some of my traveling."

Yeah, when you dig in to the vast majority of these stories, even though they try to argue that poor minorities are being impacted the most by it, they inevitably highlight upper-middle class strivers who are irritated that they have to exercise some delayed gratification and self-control, or dumbshit Boomers/Gen-Xers who took out PLUS loans for their entitled spawn.

[Minadin]

Christ, I had under $50k in student loans with several semesters of study abroad on different continents.

(University schooling in Denmark is expensive if you're not Danish)

[CE]

Millennials want to invest in experiences, not things.
Traveling the world is an experience.
Student loans are things.

[DesigNate]

I was stupid and took the maximum I could while in grad school and still didn’t get anywhere near that. Granted I went to one of the UT branch schools, but damn $280k?

[sarcasmic]

Nick says "I'm a libertarian which makes me a closet Marxist."

Say what?

[JesseAz]

You've become even more pathetic lately.

Bidens failing economy seems to really have you down and spiraling. Bad choices make bad outcomes. Sucks you were too lazy to read his platform before stanning for him.

[Don't look at me!]

It’s the runaway lobster roll prices that’s driving him mad.

[Minadin]

If you, or sarc, or anyone else here ever visits St. Louis and feels like a lobster roll (in the midwest, why? but . . .) these guys make a pretty good one that reminds me of our family vacations at Bar Harbor:

https://www.peacemakerlobstercrab.com/

They're $13 per, though.

[Don't look at me!]

Menu says $36 ea

[Minadin]

$36 is for 3.

[sarcasmic]

Bah Hah-bah.

Last month I took my daughter out and we both had lobster rolls with chips and root beer (beeyah), and a Jackson covered it. That was in town. There are nice things about living near the ocean.

[Minadin]

Still can't believe they closed the path to Anemone Cave. Learned more in that grotto than I did in high school biology lab, tell you what.

[sarcasmic]

I wish I could say where but there are a dozen investigative trolls itching to doxx me.

[Aloysious]

No.

[JesseAz]

Sad this wasn't the first dozen replies.

[R Mac]

Sarc beat everyone in and shit all over.

[Sarcasmic’s Welfare Caseworker]

You can say that about most articles here.

[Aloysious]

Should've added, "fuck off, slaver".

It's tradition.

[I, Woodchipper]

No.

Next question?

"Should the federal government subsidize and guarantee student loans?"

No

[TJJ2000]

[phone]

[justme]

here is an economic truth: "all debt is paid". if student loans are "forgiven" then the debt is paid by the taxpayer of the country. there is no forgiveness, just a transfer of debt from one person to another. which begs the question, "why should i pay your debt"? if you're a dumbass who got a degree that does not provide a way to make a living and pay your debts then that is not my problem. the bottom line is that when you get a student loan you sign a contract agreeing to repay the money. not my f-ing problem.

[Vernon Depner]

The government holds the debt. The money is already spent. There is nothing to "pay off".

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Not all debt is repaid. And the lender considers that debt an asset so when it isn't repaid it's lost and that asset is gone.

[John C. Randolph]

We're already paying too goddamned much for AOC's salary. Let her pay her own fucking debts back.

-jcr

[Unicorn Abattoir]

She just got engaged (really), and feels like the working class should give her a wedding gift.

[CE]

Well if she hadn't quashed the Amazon HQ moving to New York, her constituents might have actually had jobs, so they could move up to working class and afford to buy her a wedding gift.

[Unicorn Abattoir]

FUCK NO

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

The irony is that paying off student loans might actually kick inflation up even further by allowing these well-off shitheads to inject even more liquidity in to the economy.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Your resentment toward your betters is as irrelevant as any disaffected, half-educated, antisocial, right-wing culture war loser is in modern America.

No problem that replacement won’t solve.

[Liberty Lover]

A Reverend that is hateful and spiteful, what a contradiction.

[DesigNate]

Once you realize he’s a preacher in the Church of Shitposting, it all makes sense.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

I don't believe it's real. It has to be some sort of parody sock. And not even a good one. It posts the same old shit, almost word-for-word, in almost every thread.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Eat a gun.

[Hank Ferrous]

I've always hoped somebody would manually insert bullets, rather than use a gun, in rak's case. Apparently the 'well-off shitheads' hit too close to the mark.

[perlmonger]

Like, just take some .50 BMG projectiles and a hammer and pound them in like nails? Projectile velocities in whole feet per minute.

I've got a hammer if anyone needs to borrow one for some reason. Actually, I've got a whole sack of hammers. It's almost as dumb as the Rev.

[Sarcasmic’s Welfare Caseworker]

So when the democrats are overthrown, and you’re on your knees begging. And offering to name names and suck the cocks of everyone if they spare you, what will you have to say then?

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Open wide, hicklib. Your about to get a coat hanger of progress shoved up your ass.

[Liberty Lover]

Taxing the poor to pay off the debt of the affluent. How does that make any sense?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland]

Taxing x to pay of the debt of y, doesn't make any sense regardless of what demographics you put in x and y

[snarling_dog]

I fully support cancelling student debt, but only because my home loan identifies as a student loan.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

^

[TJJ2000]

Oh just never-mind stealing other people's resources/labor is slavery and/or ARMED robbery....

It truly is baffling how criminalistic society has gotten.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Legal Plunder

[The Jeffersonian]

The taxpayers suddenly and against their will, become co signers for these loans?

No.

[CE]

"We" cosigned a long time ago. That's why the loans are called "guaranteed" student loans.

[CE]

If you're a private lender, you can forgive all the debt you want.
Just don't take anyone else's tax money to pay off the debt and call it "forgiveness".

[Vernon Depner]

The government itself is the lender now is almost all cases. The money is already spent. There is nothing to "pay off".

[NOYB2]

But the money can be recovered from the guilty party: the university.

[Doug Heffernan]

Posts on this blog that are just paid ads? Most of the reason podcasts are chock full of ads too. All of the above on top of annual fundraising drives.

The ads have defiantly made the online elements of reason less interesting. I used to look forward to the reason roundtable podcast every week, listening to it the second it came out. Now, because of the ads (and also due to some format changes to the podcast), I haven't listened to it in months. At least I can avoid the ads now.

I'd hope that billionaire bankrolling of reason could save us from yet more ads. It is all ads now, not just on reason, but everywhere and all the time. My smart TV is like having a billboard of ads in my bedroom. I can't take it anymore. Something has got to give with the trend of being bombarded with an avalanche of ads during every waking moment.

I don't know why "the good folks at Intelligence Squared" would pay reason to write ad ad post about a 2 year old event, but maybe they could have a debate about online advertising.

[DesigNate]

Classic government: create a problem by telling banks they have to loan money to anyone that asks, regardless of what their degree was or their future salary projections, then jack up the cost of education, then act surprised when people have massive amounts of student loan debt.

Oh, and all of this is with the backdrop of the government working with almost every industry to require ever more “education” in order for people to even get licensed.

Having said all of that, and even though I would personally benefit, that’s gonna be a no from me dawg.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Why progressives can't resist "forgiving" student loan debt:
1. It would benefit young people, who are so in need of comfort.
2. It would benefit young people, who typically vote D.
3. Forgiveness is a way of indulging urges to be both compassionate and superior.
4. Voiding debt and contracts gives a middle finger to oppressive capitalist core values.
5. Most grads who can't pay off debt dedicated their academic and professional lives to crap like grievance studies and basket-weaving justice. Supporting them promotes utopian socialism.

[Hank Ferrous]

Re 3. Appearing compassionate, feeling superior.

[Vernon Depner]

You're wrong on #5. Most loan defaulters are graduates with worthless or nearly worthless trade school diplomas who were defrauded by for-profit "schools". Most graduates with actual baccalaureate degrees end up in fair to good jobs even if they majored in rubbish.

[DesigNate]

I've always hated this distinction.

State schools care just as much about the profit they make. If they didn't, their tuition rates wouldn't have increased so dramatically over the last 40 years.

[Brian]

They have to buy votes somehow.

[DesigNate]

Jokes on them, I'd still vote libertarian.

[Longtobefree]

Rather than forgive the debt, we should confiscate the endowments to pay them off in full.
Then eliminate student loans completely.
Tell the students to save up enough to pay cash, or else go get a trade.
Tell the schools to teach the little slackers how to make a living, not how to ruin the country. Make all schools disclose the hire rates and true job prospects for graduates, not just the evil "for profit" ones.

[Sarcasmic’s Welfare Caseworker]

Sounds good. The IVY league has upwards of $200 billion in endowments. That will be a good start.

[perlmonger]

I say that the best way to do it is to declare that anyone can return their student loan to the institution that took the loan money. Or let all those people declare bankruptcy.

[NOYB2]

“Confiscate” doesn’t work.

But product liability, false advertising, and fraud might work, even without new laws.

In the future, universities should be required to guarantee all new student loans, leaving them with the problem of recovering the money when the student doesn’t pay it back.

[901Tiger]

If student loans are suddenly so awful, why are the democrats not passing laws to ban student loans so we don't have this problem 10 years down the road.

[Longtobefree]

You may have confused forgiving loans with buying votes - - - - - - - -

[Vernon Depner]

Because then the armies of administrators that now infest universities, many of whom are "POC"s or other beloved minorities, would have to find real jobs. Student loans are financing an affirmative action program for minority "professionals" who would have a hard time finding professional employment anywhere but academia and government.

[NJ2AZ]

been saying this all along. Absurd that a conversation about potentially writing off billions in debt doesn't also include anything about stopping the practice of making bad loans

[Vernon Depner]

Student debt should be made dischargable under bankruptcy, like any other debt. That way, the courts can make individual decisions on whether particular borrowers are capable of paying back their loans, instead of a blanket forgiveness that would wipe out the debts of successful graduates who could pay them back along with the debts of the unfortunate and defrauded who cannot.

[DesigNate]

"Student debt should be made dischargable under bankruptcy"

Stupid Republicans....oh wait

[justabill]

Yes. This is the simple solution.

[NOYB2]

Why not hold the universities themselves responsible and take it out of their endowments?

[Vernon Depner]

The universities didn't borrow the money.

[CLM1227]

The universities should be the co-signers and guarantors of student loans.

[Duelles]

Shit. For my kids : Amherst, Columbia, Gettysburg, Umass, NYU. Three Masters degrees, and a JD. Now they want me on my retirement income (taxing my SS and charging for MediCare) to pay for some others “less Fortunate” because of their complete lack of collateral in taking on a loan? Who would loan these people money? Some kids worked to help pay for college.

[CLM1227]

The government gave them the money.

[justabill]

Get the government out of the loan business PERIOD.

[NOYB2]

Let students who can’t pay back their loans recover the money from the universities that granted them useless degrees; obviously, they sold a worthless product to a vulnerable clientele.

In the future, make universities the loan guarantors for all student loans.

You’d be amazed how quickly the educational system would become sane again.

[Vernon Depner]

In Britain student loan payments are capped at a percentage of the borrower's income. The loan never gets paid back if the borrower fails to earn enough.

[BlackCat13th]

Forgive the debt of theeeese students?

Insert picture of heroin withdrawl suffering students burning a city on hate whitey day....

Nah, double it.

[BlackCat13th]

Then tax it.

[Chad_Lim]

Thank you for the artickle!

[Chad_Lim]

Paying student debts is not easy. We should really reconsider the option of forgiving student debts. However, in order not to borrow money, students should work and study at the same time. It was quite difficult for me to do this and I solved the problem with my studies by doing this: https://essays.edubirdie.com/assignment-help service for writing student papers. It helped me to improve my grade and cope with my studies. I then graduated from college with honors. Those were good times, but I had to work very hard.