Biden administration announces partial student loan forgiveness

[Trausti]

The government is t really a good predictor of where the economy will be in 4 or 10 years.

Which is why the Soviet Union was such an unequaled success.

 

[Jarhyn]

Compare the number of positions asking for a certain degree with the number of people who want that degree. The state should provide more funding for degrees where the ratio of ask to want is higher.

The government is definitely not smart enough to know what courses are valuable it will be valuable in the future.

Note that I'm talking degrees, not specific classes.

The government is t really a good predictor of where the economy will be in 4 or 10 years. Think of all the kinds of jobs there are now that didn’t exist 15 years ago.

Unless you are going into a very specific field, your major doesn’t matter much. Sure, it does if you want to be an accountant or a nurse or a teacher. Beyond that? Not so much.

Really, now? You don't realize there are degrees with very poor job prospects because there's so little demand for the skill? Such basically worthless degrees are a fair chunk of the student loan problem.

They are not worthless and the point is not demand. The point is self actualization through education.

If that self actualization is into a bachelor's in ethnic studies who works the fry machine at McDonald's, I'm cool with my taxes going towards that, because there are a lot of core requirements in addition to the specific degree content because when I'm buying weed from that BA of ethnic studies in the parking lot later, I don't have to explain to them how chemtrails aren't a thing and that "the Jews" didn't "do 9-11" or whatever and need to find a new pot dealer.

Maybe some smart rubs off on them, you know?

Or maybe they self actualize as an accountant who does a good job and gets paid mad paper counting other people's paper.

 

[Trausti]

They are not worthless and the point is not demand. The point is self actualization through education.

Fine. But there is no good reason for the universities to charge what they do for that. Federal student loans are exploited by the universities. The universities are the problem.

 

[Jarhyn]

No, the problem is that there needs to be a single payer source of funding that whips it all into shape.

The problem is capitalistic approaches to public infrastructure.

Education should be publicly funded, for everyone, to the extent that the student seeks education.

 

[Trausti]

No, the problem is that there needs to be a single payer source of funding that whips it all into shape.

The problem is capitalistic approaches to public infrastructure.

Education should be publicly funded, for everyone, to the extent that the student seeks education.

If the universities have enough money for their armies of diversicrats and multiple layers of administration, they have enough money to lower tuition. But, priorities, right?

 

[Gospel]

No, the problem is that there needs to be a single payer source of funding that whips it all into shape.

The problem is capitalistic approaches to public infrastructure.

Education should be publicly funded, for everyone, to the extent that the student seeks education.

If the universities have enough money for their armies of diversicrats and multiple layers of administration, they have enough money to lower tuition. But, priorities, right?

The schools can do with their money as they so please. ~Truly yours Capitolism~

In my opinion, things like health, safety & education shouldn't be locked behind a paywall. The free market has plenty of other shit to peddle.

 

[Toni]

Compare the number of positions asking for a certain degree with the number of people who want that degree. The state should provide more funding for degrees where the ratio of ask to want is higher.

The government is definitely not smart enough to know what courses are valuable it will be valuable in the future.

Note that I'm talking degrees, not specific classes.

The government is t really a good predictor of where the economy will be in 4 or 10 years. Think of all the kinds of jobs there are now that didn’t exist 15 years ago.

Unless you are going into a very specific field, your major doesn’t matter much. Sure, it does if you want to be an accountant or a nurse or a teacher. Beyond that? Not so much.

Really, now? You don't realize there are degrees with very poor job prospects because there's so little demand for the skill? Such basically worthless degrees are a fair chunk of the student loan problem.

And yet, coursework in two of those fields landed me jobs that I really really really needed at the time.

Trust me, I was absolutely shocked that I ever earned a dime from French classes and Shakespeare/Greek drama.

 

[Trausti]

No, the problem is that there needs to be a single payer source of funding that whips it all into shape.

The problem is capitalistic approaches to public infrastructure.

Education should be publicly funded, for everyone, to the extent that the student seeks education.

If the universities have enough money for their armies of diversicrats and multiple layers of administration, they have enough money to lower tuition. But, priorities, right?

The schools can do with their money as they so please. ~Truly yours Capitolism~

In my opinion, things like health, safety & education shouldn't be locked behind a paywall. The free market has plenty of other shit to peddle.

Or just be efficient. In-state tuition for Florida public universities - like UF - is a bargain by comparison to elsewhere. How is UF, a “public ivy,” able to do that? Where there’s no state income tax?

 

[Gospel]

How is UF, a “public ivy,” able to do that? Where there’s no state income tax?

Disney. But Desantis is trying to put an end to that.

 

[Canard DuJour]

The Meme that Refuses to Die: Government Debt Must Be Paid Back

No it doesn't. It almost never is. To pay back government debt, you have to run a budget surplus, and while there may be modest surpluses from time to time, they don't add up to more than a minuscule fraction of all the accumulated debt. But don't take it from me, look at the record :

(...)

Governments that issue their own money don’t have to pay off their debts. They actually can’t. In fact, they issue money — the money that’s necessary for a growing economy to operate — by deficit spending.

That leaves the idea that future net ("deficit") govt spending is constrained by previous net govt spending - the idea that "future tax payers will get less".

The evidence is very much to the contrary. Govts, if anything, constrain current spending by debt to GDP ratios (a bit like why you spend more than when you were a teenager). The GDP component of that ratio mainly increases with human skills and education. Apart from natural resources, there isn't really any other significant source of economic growth.

This is the leftist equivalent of tax cuts pay for themselves. It's no more correct.

The difference is evidence. There's plenty evidence of positive multiplier effects from net govt spending - esp education, infrastructure, healthcare - but little to none that tax cuts for the rich have any such effect.

And anyone can verify that the occasional budget surpluses don't add up to more than a minuscule fraction of all the accumulated "debt".

 

[laughing dog]

No, the problem is that there needs to be a single payer source of funding that whips it all into shape.

The problem is capitalistic approaches to public infrastructure.

Education should be publicly funded, for everyone, to the extent that the student seeks education.

If the universities have enough money for their armies of diversicrats and multiple layers of administration, they have enough money to lower tuition. But, priorities, right?

The schools can do with their money as they so please. ~Truly yours Capitolism~

In my opinion, things like health, safety & education shouldn't be locked behind a paywall. The free market has plenty of other shit to peddle.

Or just be efficient. In-state tuition for Florida public universities - like UF - is a bargain by comparison to elsewhere. How is UF, a “public ivy,” able to do that? Where there’s no state income tax?

UF is not really a public ivy. I realize that this concept is difficult to grasp, but education is much like anything else one can buy - you tend to get what you pay for.

Moreover, your grasp on university expenses and arithmetic is tenuous. Even granting your debatable assumption about what constitutes "wasteful" expenditures as valid, when they are divided by the number of affected students, the effect on tuition is usually pretty small.

 

[laughing dog]

Making a loan is a sunk cost.
Forgiving the loan means you will not get income from that cost.

But that means you don't have the income you expected. You can't spend as much on other things as you intended. You're pulling the standard leftist handwave of pretending something sufficiently dispersed ceases to exist.

All lenders always risk that they will not be paid back. The risk is reflected in the interest charged. In my example, I was charging 5% interest which is higher than today’s mortgage rates or car loans.

Failure to repay a loan generally is reflected in a credit score.

You’re looking at education as a private good rather than a public good. And as job training rather than education. Society benefits from a well educated populace. Better educated people are better able to be informed on issues of the day. They tend to be happier and healthier people and, regardless of whether or not they work in the field in which they earned their degree, they tend to earn more money. They tend to make better choices in life. All of these things lead to a more stable, more productive society.

I see this as a good thing.

You didn't address Loren's question at all.

You failing to get paid back means you don't have the money you would have had. Your assertion that government forgiving debt harms nobody is wrong.

It is wrong only under certain assumptions. You and LP are only looking at part of the picture. You ignore the additional tax revenue generated from the additional earnings that education facilitated for the person. You ignore the additional tax revenue from the additional spending that the education caused. And, more importantly, it ignores
1) the additional benefit to society of having more educated people, and
2) the additional benefit of having better people (which is the ultimate goal of all education - the betterment of the individual).

Now, once all of that is considered, it may very well be the case that no one is harmed by forgiving the debt if the additional benefits accruing from the use of that debt outweigh the costs of issuing that debt (which include any forbearance of repayment).

All in all, your analysis, is economically naive.

 

[Trausti]

No, the problem is that there needs to be a single payer source of funding that whips it all into shape.

The problem is capitalistic approaches to public infrastructure.

Education should be publicly funded, for everyone, to the extent that the student seeks education.

If the universities have enough money for their armies of diversicrats and multiple layers of administration, they have enough money to lower tuition. But, priorities, right?

The schools can do with their money as they so please. ~Truly yours Capitolism~

In my opinion, things like health, safety & education shouldn't be locked behind a paywall. The free market has plenty of other shit to peddle.

Or just be efficient. In-state tuition for Florida public universities - like UF - is a bargain by comparison to elsewhere. How is UF, a “public ivy,” able to do that? Where there’s no state income tax?

UF is not really a public ivy. I realize that this concept is difficult to grasp, but education is much like anything else one can buy - you tend to get what you pay for.

Moreover, your grasp on university expenses and arithmetic is tenuous. Even granting your debatable assumption about what constitutes "wasteful" expenditures as valid, when they are divided by the number of affected students, the effect on tuition is usually pretty small.

I didn't make it up, dude.  Public_Ivy Sheesh. And I did undergrad at UF years ago. Did not realize the bargain until I left the state and spoke to other folks about what they paid. Kinda shocked.

 

[laughing dog]

Or just be efficient. In-state tuition for Florida public universities - like UF - is a bargain by comparison to elsewhere. How is UF, a “public ivy,” able to do that? Where there’s no state income tax?

UF is not really a public ivy. I realize that this concept is difficult to grasp, but education is much like anything else one can buy - you tend to get what you pay for.

Moreover, your grasp on university expenses and arithmetic is tenuous. Even granting your debatable assumption about what constitutes "wasteful" expenditures as valid, when they are divided by the number of affected students, the effect on tuition is usually pretty small.

I didn't make it up, dude.  Public_Ivy Sheesh.

FFS, no one said you made it up. The list of "public ivies' continues to expand which strongly suggests the standards for inclusion are falling.

 

[Trausti]

Making a loan is a sunk cost.
Forgiving the loan means you will not get income from that cost.

But that means you don't have the income you expected. You can't spend as much on other things as you intended. You're pulling the standard leftist handwave of pretending something sufficiently dispersed ceases to exist.

All lenders always risk that they will not be paid back. The risk is reflected in the interest charged. In my example, I was charging 5% interest which is higher than today’s mortgage rates or car loans.

Failure to repay a loan generally is reflected in a credit score.

You’re looking at education as a private good rather than a public good. And as job training rather than education. Society benefits from a well educated populace. Better educated people are better able to be informed on issues of the day. They tend to be happier and healthier people and, regardless of whether or not they work in the field in which they earned their degree, they tend to earn more money. They tend to make better choices in life. All of these things lead to a more stable, more productive society.

I see this as a good thing.

You didn't address Loren's question at all.

You failing to get paid back means you don't have the money you would have had. Your assertion that government forgiving debt harms nobody is wrong.

It is wrong only under certain assumptions. You and LP are only looking at part of the picture. You ignore the additional tax revenue generated from the additional earnings that education facilitated for the person. You ignore the additional tax revenue from the additional spending that the education caused. And, more importantly, it ignores
1) the additional benefit to society of having more educated people, and
2) the additional benefit of having better people (which is the ultimate goal of all education - the betterment of the individual).

Now, once all of that is considered, it may very well be the case that no one is harmed by forgiving the debt if the additional benefits accruing from the use of that debt outweigh the costs of issuing that debt (which include any forbearance of repayment).

All in all, your analysis, is economically naive.

Yeah! We get to bail out the banks again!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Meme that Refuses to Die: Government Debt Must Be Paid Back

No it doesn't. It almost never is. To pay back government debt, you have to run a budget surplus, and while there may be modest surpluses from time to time, they don't add up to more than a minuscule fraction of all the accumulated debt. But don't take it from me, look at the record :

(...)

Governments that issue their own money don’t have to pay off their debts. They actually can’t. In fact, they issue money — the money that’s necessary for a growing economy to operate — by deficit spending.

That leaves the idea that future net ("deficit") govt spending is constrained by previous net govt spending - the idea that "future tax payers will get less".

The evidence is very much to the contrary. Govts, if anything, constrain current spending by debt to GDP ratios (a bit like why you spend more than when you were a teenager). The GDP component of that ratio mainly increases with human skills and education. Apart from natural resources, there isn't really any other significant source of economic growth.

This is the leftist equivalent of tax cuts pay for themselves. It's no more correct.

The difference is evidence. There's plenty evidence of positive multiplier effects from net govt spending - esp education, infrastructure, healthcare - but little to none that tax cuts for the rich have any such effect.

And anyone can verify that the occasional budget surpluses don't add up to more than a minuscule fraction of all the accumulated "debt".

Exactly the same crap as the right is peddling.

Of course there's a multiplier. Government spending has a multiplier, tax cuts have a multiplier. The question is whether the multiplier is large enough to be a net positive.

 

[Metaphor]

Calling it 7 days rather than a week doesn't change the situation.

It's going to come out of taxpayer's pockets.

No, nothing is going to come out of the taxpayers' pockets.

The money was spent, in the past. It came out of the taxpayers' pockets then. It's a sunk cost.

Loan repayments to the federal government are themselves a form of taxation. Forgiveness is a tax cut.

It's going to come out of future taxpayers pockets.

No, it really isn't. It came out of past taxpayers pockets. It's done.

Forgiveness of the repayments is just a tax cut, targeted at former students whose career earnings haven't been as high as was originally anticipated. And it cuts their currently elevated tax rate back to the same rate that others with the same income currently pay.

It costs nobody anything that they haven't already paid at the time those former students were studying.

And when the taxpayer paid the cost for the student, it was with the student's promise to pay the amount back.

The whole point of income taxation is that everyone with the same income pays the same tax, regardless of what government services they might have accessed in the past. We don't charge people additional income tax because they commute more than average on interstate highways, or because they claimed SNAP benefits at some time in the past, or because they live in a place that was struck by a natural disaster and received federal assistance. We just look at income, and tax a percentage of that.

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That's just nuts.

"Nuts" is characterising loan repayments as a tax. It is not one.

Not to anyone who is even remotely economically literate. bilby is correct in that when the gov't forgives a loan repayment has the same economic impact on the borrower as a tax cut. The loan payment has the same immediate economic impact on the borrower as a tax payment.

In essence, bilby's argument rests on the implicit premise that any fees government-funded education should be income-based not service expense based.

bilby said:

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That characterisation is false and nuts. It ignores everything about how student debts are incurred.

I bold-faced and italicized the part of my response you clearly did not understand. If you did, you'd know your response is nuts.

No, your bolded and italicised part is irrelevant.

This is an indication you still have not read my response with a modicum of understanding. Because if you had, you'd understand that the phrase "argument rests on the implicit premise that " means your response is completely irrelevant.

Furthermore, bilby's argument is that debt-forgiveness has the same effects as a tax cut (not that it is identical to a tax cut) for the borrowers. He is correct on that point.

Whether it has the 'same effect' is irrelevant. bibly said:

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That's just nuts.

That statement is false and nuts.

The discussion is about the policy in the USA about debts in the USA. Hence your comments about Australia is truly pointless.

No, it was not pointless. The point was that repaying a debt is not "paying taxes."

 

[laughing dog]

Calling it 7 days rather than a week doesn't change the situation.

It's going to come out of taxpayer's pockets.

No, nothing is going to come out of the taxpayers' pockets.

The money was spent, in the past. It came out of the taxpayers' pockets then. It's a sunk cost.

Loan repayments to the federal government are themselves a form of taxation. Forgiveness is a tax cut.

It's going to come out of future taxpayers pockets.

No, it really isn't. It came out of past taxpayers pockets. It's done.

Forgiveness of the repayments is just a tax cut, targeted at former students whose career earnings haven't been as high as was originally anticipated. And it cuts their currently elevated tax rate back to the same rate that others with the same income currently pay.

It costs nobody anything that they haven't already paid at the time those former students were studying.

And when the taxpayer paid the cost for the student, it was with the student's promise to pay the amount back.

The whole point of income taxation is that everyone with the same income pays the same tax, regardless of what government services they might have accessed in the past. We don't charge people additional income tax because they commute more than average on interstate highways, or because they claimed SNAP benefits at some time in the past, or because they live in a place that was struck by a natural disaster and received federal assistance. We just look at income, and tax a percentage of that.

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That's just nuts.

"Nuts" is characterising loan repayments as a tax. It is not one.

Not to anyone who is even remotely economically literate. bilby is correct in that when the gov't forgives a loan repayment has the same economic impact on the borrower as a tax cut. The loan payment has the same immediate economic impact on the borrower as a tax payment.

In essence, bilby's argument rests on the implicit premise that any fees government-funded education should be income-based not service expense based.

bilby said:

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That characterisation is false and nuts. It ignores everything about how student debts are incurred.

I bold-faced and italicized the part of my response you clearly did not understand. If you did, you'd know your response is nuts.

No, your bolded and italicised part is irrelevant.

This is an indication you still have not read my response with a modicum of understanding. Because if you had, you'd understand that the phrase "argument rests on the implicit premise that " means your response is completely irrelevant.

Furthermore, bilby's argument is that debt-forgiveness has the same effects as a tax cut (not that it is identical to a tax cut) for the borrowers. He is correct on that point.

Whether it has the 'same effect' is irrelevant. bibly said:

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That's just nuts.

That statement is false and nuts.

The discussion is about the policy in the USA about debts in the USA. Hence your comments about Australia is truly pointless.

No, it was not pointless. The point was that repaying a debt is not "paying taxes."

You are simply mistaken. Not that it will stop your repetition of taking quotes of the context of the discusion, and economic illiteracy.

 

[Metaphor]

Calling it 7 days rather than a week doesn't change the situation.

It's going to come out of taxpayer's pockets.

No, nothing is going to come out of the taxpayers' pockets.

The money was spent, in the past. It came out of the taxpayers' pockets then. It's a sunk cost.

Loan repayments to the federal government are themselves a form of taxation. Forgiveness is a tax cut.

It's going to come out of future taxpayers pockets.

No, it really isn't. It came out of past taxpayers pockets. It's done.

Forgiveness of the repayments is just a tax cut, targeted at former students whose career earnings haven't been as high as was originally anticipated. And it cuts their currently elevated tax rate back to the same rate that others with the same income currently pay.

It costs nobody anything that they haven't already paid at the time those former students were studying.

And when the taxpayer paid the cost for the student, it was with the student's promise to pay the amount back.

The whole point of income taxation is that everyone with the same income pays the same tax, regardless of what government services they might have accessed in the past. We don't charge people additional income tax because they commute more than average on interstate highways, or because they claimed SNAP benefits at some time in the past, or because they live in a place that was struck by a natural disaster and received federal assistance. We just look at income, and tax a percentage of that.

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That's just nuts.

"Nuts" is characterising loan repayments as a tax. It is not one.

Not to anyone who is even remotely economically literate. bilby is correct in that when the gov't forgives a loan repayment has the same economic impact on the borrower as a tax cut. The loan payment has the same immediate economic impact on the borrower as a tax payment.

In essence, bilby's argument rests on the implicit premise that any fees government-funded education should be income-based not service expense based.

bilby said:

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That characterisation is false and nuts. It ignores everything about how student debts are incurred.

I bold-faced and italicized the part of my response you clearly did not understand. If you did, you'd know your response is nuts.

No, your bolded and italicised part is irrelevant.

This is an indication you still have not read my response with a modicum of understanding. Because if you had, you'd understand that the phrase "argument rests on the implicit premise that " means your response is completely irrelevant.

Furthermore, bilby's argument is that debt-forgiveness has the same effects as a tax cut (not that it is identical to a tax cut) for the borrowers. He is correct on that point.

Whether it has the 'same effect' is irrelevant. bibly said:

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That's just nuts.

That statement is false and nuts.

The discussion is about the policy in the USA about debts in the USA. Hence your comments about Australia is truly pointless.

No, it was not pointless. The point was that repaying a debt is not "paying taxes."

You are simply mistaken. Not that it will stop your repetition of taking quotes of the context of the discusion, and economic illiteracy.

Paying back debts to the government is not "extra taxes."

Bilby, and you as his enabler, wants to falsely equate paying back debts to the government with 'extra taxes', because there is a moral difference between paying back debts you incurred (fair) and being charged a higher rate of taxes for having used a government service (unfair).

Paying back debts you owe to the government is not extra taxes.

 

[Toni]

Calling it 7 days rather than a week doesn't change the situation.

It's going to come out of taxpayer's pockets.

No, nothing is going to come out of the taxpayers' pockets.

The money was spent, in the past. It came out of the taxpayers' pockets then. It's a sunk cost.

Loan repayments to the federal government are themselves a form of taxation. Forgiveness is a tax cut.

It's going to come out of future taxpayers pockets.

No, it really isn't. It came out of past taxpayers pockets. It's done.

Forgiveness of the repayments is just a tax cut, targeted at former students whose career earnings haven't been as high as was originally anticipated. And it cuts their currently elevated tax rate back to the same rate that others with the same income currently pay.

It costs nobody anything that they haven't already paid at the time those former students were studying.

And when the taxpayer paid the cost for the student, it was with the student's promise to pay the amount back.

The whole point of income taxation is that everyone with the same income pays the same tax, regardless of what government services they might have accessed in the past. We don't charge people additional income tax because they commute more than average on interstate highways, or because they claimed SNAP benefits at some time in the past, or because they live in a place that was struck by a natural disaster and received federal assistance. We just look at income, and tax a percentage of that.

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That's just nuts.

"Nuts" is characterising loan repayments as a tax. It is not one.

Not to anyone who is even remotely economically literate. bilby is correct in that when the gov't forgives a loan repayment has the same economic impact on the borrower as a tax cut. The loan payment has the same immediate economic impact on the borrower as a tax payment.

In essence, bilby's argument rests on the implicit premise that any fees government-funded education should be income-based not service expense based.

bilby said:

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That characterisation is false and nuts. It ignores everything about how student debts are incurred.

I bold-faced and italicized the part of my response you clearly did not understand. If you did, you'd know your response is nuts.

No, your bolded and italicised part is irrelevant.

This is an indication you still have not read my response with a modicum of understanding. Because if you had, you'd understand that the phrase "argument rests on the implicit premise that " means your response is completely irrelevant.

Furthermore, bilby's argument is that debt-forgiveness has the same effects as a tax cut (not that it is identical to a tax cut) for the borrowers. He is correct on that point.

Whether it has the 'same effect' is irrelevant. bibly said:

Unless they got educated at government expense, in which case we bizarrely demand that they pay extra taxes that other people with identical incomes do not.

That's just nuts.

That statement is false and nuts.

The discussion is about the policy in the USA about debts in the USA. Hence your comments about Australia is truly pointless.

No, it was not pointless. The point was that repaying a debt is not "paying taxes."

You are simply mistaken. Not that it will stop your repetition of taking quotes of the context of the discusion, and economic illiteracy.

Paying back debts to the government is not "extra taxes."

Bilby, and you as his enabler, wants to falsely equate paying back debts to the government with 'extra taxes', because there is a moral difference between paying back debts you incurred (fair) and being charged a higher rate of taxes for having used a government service (unfair).

Paying back debts you owe to the government is not extra taxes.

"Paying back debts you owe the government' IS extra taxes if you should not have had to incur the debts in the first place.

I don't know how education funding is handled in Australia but in the US, many student loans have unconscionably high rates of interest, and are given to 18 year olds who lack the experience, understanding or finances to understand the financial commitment and its implications for potentially several decades of their lives. Unfortunately, parents are far too often equally ignorant and cannot or do not provide the needed counseling. This is simply fact in the US. To continually insist that students knowingly took out the loans is not correct as their 'knowledge' was not based on actual fact based information or the understanding of what the implications of such loans, which easily exceed 100K in many cases will do to their future financial security.

Despite the fact the US enacted laws that gave 18 year olds the vote in all state, local and federal elections in 1970 in order to somehow justify drafting 18 year olds to send them to Viet Nam, 18 year olds did not magically become competent adults on their 18th birthdays. Brain science quite explicitly demonstrates that 18 year old brains have not yet matured and are not capable of understanding long term implications of their actions.

I genuinely cannot understand why you take such an interest in whether or not student loans in the US might be forgiven to some extent. It seems absolutely inexplicable. Also, you don't really have that firm a grasp on the implication of taxes, fees, government spending, the multiplier effect, or other basic economic principles.