White House Lashes Out At Republicans Over Student Loan Cancellation; Conservatives Fire Back | The Daily Wire, Aug 26th, 2022 - Attempting to paint Congress Republicans as hypocrites because they took out Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans during the COVID pandemic, which were later forgiven.

[u/American_Streamer]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-lashes-out-at-republicans-over-student-loan-cancellation-conservatives-fire-back

[u/[deleted]]

Well that may or may not be true. But complaints of this debt forgiveness are warranted. I have no PPP loans abs I have the same complaints of the bus ill-advised, unfair, student loan handout.

[u/Vast-Combination4046 → u/[deleted]]

Kids got sold a future that didn't exist. We were told that taking out loans was an investment and when they graduated they didn't have the jobs they were training for.

I don't have a student loan and I'm not mad they are getting help with them.

[u/[deleted] → u/Vast-Combination4046]

No, they didn’t think through their decision. They aren’t victims. If you to a car dealer that sales is going to try to sell you stuff by painting a rosy picture. If you just buy what he’s selling that doesn’t mean you aren’t on the hook for your commitment because you weren’t an informed buyer. Even if you major in a good field from a quality school, there’s still no guarantee of a job. Maybe the economy is down when you finish. Maybe you’re not willing to move where the jobs are. Maybe your grades weren’t as strong as they could have been. It all comes down to responsibility and all this handout does is reinforce “You don’t need to be responsible. We will make your neighbor pay your bills.”

I never took out a dime of student loans. Yea, scholarships covered most of my undergrad degree but I never had enough to cover housing and meals so I lived at home (which I wanted to do anyway). My grad degree was partially paid by an employer and me. But now I have to pay, not just for my stepson’s college, but those on the receiving end of a Democrat handout vote-buying scheme.

But I did make some bad choices as an undergrad student and ran up credit cards debt. But I learned my lesson on that eventually and no one ever bailed me out. Today, not only do I have only a tiny bit of debt, I don’t even make late payments. The responsible in life generally wind up doing better and Biden just made it harder for these people to learn that lesson.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Let’s continue to make excuses for companies being shitty and predatory

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Who is being predatory? And this involves government loans as Biden has been arrogant enough to try to cancel private loans.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Universities and loan companies are extremely predatory. Sallie Mae did the same thing to millennials that Fannie Mae did to Gen Xers with the housing crisis. Universities take advantage of the Pell Grant and overcharge for classes that could be taught on YouTube or on the job

And neither republicans or democrats are doing a thing to stop it because both sides are profiting

Biden canceling student loan debt is like using a piece of gum to seal a hole in a sinking boat

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

And this loan forgiveness only encourages the schools to continue to charge higher and higher fees. This moves things in the wrong direction on that issue. Ultimately this is the reasonable economic response since easily available loans with little regard for total indebtedness coupled with students who will be conditioned to expect future bailouts will increase the willingness-to-pay of the students. Knowing this, the schools will naturally raise rates to increase revenue. You can’t really expect anything else. Nothing will change until we break that willingness-to-pay and decrease it which will induce schools to lower rates.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Except you’re missing the part where schools have already been doing this for decades. The only thing that has changed is now there is this one time loan forgiveness. Colleges have been exploiting Pell Grants since the 80s when Reagan revamped them which caused millions more students to become dependent on loans

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

But it’s all the same problem. It’s like any bubble: the more money chasing something, the higher the price goes. It’s just different phases of the same mechanics at play. If you are responsible for setting fees, and you know that the student have access to substantial funds to pay their fees, are you going to price lower or higher?

[u/Vast-Combination4046 → u/[deleted]]

"are you going to take advantage of an entire generation or just give them the service they need to join society"

10k barely touched the interest payment anyway. Kids are still paying for classes, just not getting charged quite so much for being poor.

[u/[deleted] → u/Vast-Combination4046]

You talking about this in some grand idealist manner or you face economic and practical reality. Plus they may not see it the way you do as “taking advantage” for a variety of reasons. So I ask the economic questions again: are they going to price higher or lower?

Poor? Some of the recipients of this make up to $125k. And college graduates still on average have higher salaries.

[u/Vast-Combination4046 → u/[deleted]]

some when you are paying 400$ a month for student loans, $700-$2000 a month on housing, $200 a week on food and $300 per week in child care 120k a year doesn't leave much

[u/[deleted] → u/Vast-Combination4046]

Are you going to answer the question on how a college is going to approach this? The way to solve a problem is to accurately identify it and the key aspects of it.

Don’t give me that $120k is hard off. It may not make one wealthy but if someone is struggling on $120k there are some questionable financial choices in there. Someone making an income well less than $120k shouldn’t be getting government payouts much less one making $120k

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Right, so the current model is predatory and artificially inflates the value of college degrees. The problem has existed for decades and colleges have been allowed to exploit students because of it. Republicans are just now getting upset about it because of the student loan forgiveness. Actually I can’t even say they’re upset about the predatory practices because once again, many of them are profiting (same with Dems though)

Yes you are right it is natural for any business to raise prices when there’s more demand, but it’s also on a business to act ethically, which it is clearly evident many are not. Here’s an opportunity for both sides to step in and solve the problem and yet no one is stepping up to the plate. Look how well that worked out during the Great Recession

So are we just going to continue to allow businesses to take advantage of people? Or are we going to do something…?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

How is it predatory? How are they “exploiting?” No one forces anyone’s hand. It’s merely economics at work. Define “artificially inflate?” You want to attack this? Get rid of subsidized and backed student loans. Let the free market govern loans like other types of loans. Break the increasing willingness of students to pay the fees. Are you willing to do that? Even if that is not entirely practical, there is little doubt there is too many and too easily obtained loans and that creates a bubble.

As to raising prices define what the ethical barrier is here in this situation. So unless you define that how is it clear the schools are not acting ethically?

You make a lot high levels claims but very few specific deductions. I have my doubt your claims are valid but that’s even hard to say without specificity.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Between offering degrees that will never pay the bills/have viable job offers to forcing students to take classes they’ll never need/offer them information they could learn in a real work environment, to creating these gentrified mega campuses that are part of the “college experience”. It’s all a bunch of overpriced bullshit they’re trying to sell you as they line their faculty member’s pockets with bonuses. That’s just part of it

And yeah let’s get rid of subsidized loans/corporate subsidies. Let’s get rid of them for banks and corporations like Amazon, Nike, Tesla, Ford and Lockheed while we’re at it

As for rising prices the ethical barrier is they are obviously contributing to the negative economic health of those who they gave tens of thousands in loans to knowing that some of their degrees will never pan out. Just like Fannie Mae gave out mortgages for homes they knew people would never pay off

No one is forcing anyone to go to college (outside of undeserved pressure from many parents and public education systems) but that doesn’t absolve any college or lender of unethical behavior such as deceptive marketing or giving out loans they know will be defaulted on. It’s on businesses to do good business for the people, not just their own pockets

And if you disagree with the millions of people that also believe colleges and lenders are predatory then you can just continue complaining about people getting a bailout while doing nothing to actually understand let alone fix the contributing factors to this massive problem

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Many degrees will never pay the bills. <Fill in the blank> Studies, philosophy, pure liberals arts, even some life sciences. I could continue. While I consider some of those garbage degrees and some legitimate fields of study but with limited employment prospects, that simply my opinion. Shouldn’t someone have the choice to choose those fields, especially if they are paying for their own eduction? Since people are not assigned majors and a little research would inform them of the likely employment prospects, I don’t see this as exploitation.

Some would even argue that college education is more than mere job training. I see that argument but my desire to pay for such education with no returns on investment would be limited. But that’s me and we all have freedom of choice. This supports my inability to see exploitation.

For me I was after my degree and I did not pursue the testimonial college experience. But others find that a key part of college. Between this and uneconomic majors, while we limit what degrees government invoked loans can be used for? I must admit, I don’t hate that idea.

As to the ethics, remember, not every student is in distress over their loans. So how can the college know which student will be? And is that their responsibility? They don’t force the students to take out loans in order to matriculate. When does it become the responsibility of the buyer to make an informed decision? I saw it becomes their responsibility immediately.

As to the point that no one is forced to go to college I think that is approaching a key driver of the problem. We send too many kids out of high school to four year college. There’s a major culture around that right now. I’m certainly not opposed to higher education, as you correctly point out, many of those majors have weak economic prospects. What’s more useful? A four year Gender Studies which leads to a career in Starbucks or a tech program like HVAC or electronic technician or automotive maintenance. I say the latter. But culturally we see that as an inferior path to four year college. I work for a company that can’t fill some of our blue collar roles. We need people.