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.
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.