This line of reasoning is very common. "If young people don't have to endure the same suffering I did then my suffering doesn't mean anything." It comes up in student loan forgiveness, predatory work environments, and many more. Arresting intergenerational harm would admit that ones own suffering was pointless and that isn't something people can deal with accepting. It's a group coping mechanism, which serves a purpose, but also comes with downsides.
I agree with the general principle, but student loan forgiveness is in a completely different category. When a loan is forgiven that's not just free money from the government, it increases the national debt which impacts all citizens. I sympathize with those who made unwise choices as youths to take on excessive student debt. But I sympathize more with working-class people who never took out student loans and instead got a job or enlisted in the military. Why should they now pay for the mistakes of college students who partied for 4+ years in college majors with no earning potential?
Student loan forgiveness also creates a moral hazard. Every future generation of students will then expect that they can take out unlimited loans and if things don't work out then no worries, the debt will just magically vanish.
How do you feel about loan forgiveness for those of us who made good decisions at the time and the conditions changed?
On a personal level, I got MS my very last semester in graduate school. This prevents me from doing the career I trained to do and I instead am working in a lower paying position. Because I can work at all, I'm still on the hook for all my loans even though I can't actually make use of the education I acquired. (Disability discharge is only if you can't work at all, so if you go through all of med school and get a TBI in a car accident the week after you graduate and can't practice but can still work retail, you still have to pay all that money back).
On a societal level, what about the people who were in college during the GFC? I graduated in 2010 and plenty of people graduated in '08/'09/10 who made very reasonable decisions about what to study and how much to take out in loans that got upended because our government and Wall Street can't manage their liabilities. For example, I counted on my father's help to reduce the loans I took out for undergrad, but I ended up with a ton of loans my senior year because everything crashed. Is that my fault or bad decision making? That as a 17 year old I couldn't better predict where the economy would be in 4-5 years than the adults and politicians in charge? Or the kids who've recently gone into CS after it was promised to them as a golden ticket only for the COVID years to fuck them over?
I agree that we shouldn't expect society to be on the hook for bad decisions, but painting student loans as only the result of bad decisions basically looks at the people falling through the cracks and shrugs, declaring them acceptable losses. That doesn't make people want to participate in society or engage in good faith. Which is also a problem.
Yes, I agree. And we shouldn't have paid for the mistakes of GM managers and debtors by bailing them out either. People who make bad decisions should take the consequences.
