The comment section is full of a lot of angry people who don't want anyone to have loan forgiveness. I find that surprising since most surveys claims there is over 50% support for student loan forgiveness. The article should be available for anyone to read for at least two weeks, according to WaPo's gifting rules.
Includes a bit of resentment from people who endured crippling student debt and don't like the thought of other people getting out easy.
The problem is people who suffered being responsible dislike seeing others get rewarded for irresponsibility.
So people paying student loans today are "irresponsible" but when you did it, it was a good investment? What a crock.
Wut? Isn’t it about folks who were responsible and paid back their loans resenting that their taxes will be used to write off the loans of others? Is the government going to refund our payments with interest? Or are we just suckers for being responsible?
It’s like people who were children before there were vaccinations available to prevent measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, polio and more resenting kids today who can be vaccinated against these diseases.
It's nothing like that. If both Billy and Bonita incurred student debt from attending university 2000-2003, then they can both have their education paid for by the government, if that's your plan. If you are going to give Bonita a free ride because she was irresponsible and didn't pay it back, you can give Billy the same ride by refunding him his payments.
If Billy and Bonita both went to university and incurred debt from 2000-2003, they may or may not have incurred the same amount of debt, they may or may not have gone into fields that paid the same, they may or may not have had other experience, life events, etc. Billy may have married a gainfully employed spouse and with two incomes, it’s easier to pay off the debt. Or maybe he inherited a lot of money. Bonita may be single and helping to support her recently widowed father.
In either case, bilby is right: the cost of those loans is a sunk cost.
It was wrong to expect 18 year olds to go into debt in order to obtain an education. It was wrong if they were 25.
Continuing that wrong helps no one.
Education is a public good which benefits everyone.