Sanders' plan to cancel student debt

I was a big Sanders fan in 2016, and up until now.. But I read a post basically saying that cancelling the debt of those who have the most opportunities in society, and placing that cost on the rest, was pretty much absurd.

Never had I considered that before. It's like mortgage relief for people who can pay their mortgages, while the rest rent.

I believe in free education ala Ireland, but the logic in a one-line post has made me wonder a lot about the fairness of it. The people who paid themselves through uni, or who couldn't contemplate enormous fees in America, will be objectively worse off than the folks who would have their debt cancelled.

If anything, it should be a debt relief if you're willing to give up your degree or something. Tough topic because the money involved is so high.

Silentcorner

There is an alarming amount of money owed in the student debt crisis in the States, all of academia's own making...charging a young student huge money for a worthless degree was always going to blow up in someone's face...I read the figures owed by students are astronomical and owed mostly by young women...you can't walk away from student debt in the States, it follows you through life.

The chickens always come home to roost.

Cancelling debt is an impossibility, way more young people didn't go to college for a myriad of reasons, just wait until the American economy goes in to recession!

https://www.thenation.com/article/who-is-most-affected-by-student-debt-women/

leitrim4life

The big draw for the US military and US pro sports is the "free ride" to university. Make it free to all and spirts/military lose their source of players/soldiers etc.

biko

Canceling the between 1.6 trillion dollars debt isn't going to help, other than to get votes for Bernie.
He said it would cost approximately $2.2 trillion to cancel student debt and make all public colleges in the U.S. free.

Warren is thinking about it too.

Though their plans offer different approaches to cancelling student debt, both Sanders and Warren are proposing to pay for their plans either through a tax on wealthy Americans or activities that wealthy Americans are more likely to take part in.

Outkast_IRE

I think cancelling student debt is one of the most forward thinking policies out there.

Trumps policies banking on the trickledown effect from corporations and wealthy individuals have proven hollow.Most of the Corporations just did massive share buybacks and most of the wealthy individuals carried on as normal.

If you cancel student debt 90% of these people will put that money into the real economy, buying housing, cars etc.

I think its incredibly wrong to think, well i paid off my debt why should someone else get a free ride. There should be an acknowledgement that students should never of been put into that level of debit in the first place, and its wrong that they feel the need to serve in the armed forces to get college tuition paid for.

Out of every candidate running Sanders is the only one whom i would support, he gives his views and sticks with them, he is telling it like it is and the 1% of super wealthy individuals are going to be brought into check if he becomes president.

We could do with more like him in this country, rather than our current troup of publicans, school teachers and wasters.

Silentcorner

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

I think cancelling student debt is one of the most forward thinking policies out there.

Trumps policies banking on the trickledown effect from corporations and wealthy individuals have proven hollow.Most of the Corporations just did massive share buybacks and most of the wealthy individuals carried on as normal.

If you cancel student debt 90% of these people will put that money into the real economy, buying housing, cars etc.

I think its incredibly wrong to think, well i paid off my debt why should someone else get a free ride. There should be an acknowledgement that students should never of been put into that level of debit in the first place, and its wrong that they feel the need to serve in the armed forces to get college tuition paid for.

Out of every candidate running Sanders is the only one whom i would support, he gives his views and sticks with them, he is telling it like it is and the 1% of super wealthy individuals are going to be brought into check if he becomes president.

We could do with more like him in this country, rather than our current troup of publicans, school teachers and wasters.

We should do the same with mortgages so...winners all round!

Kivaro

Silentcorner wrote: »

We should do the same with mortgages so...winners all round!

Yep, it's a ludicrous concept.

And claiming that 90% of US students who get their debts cancelled will start buying homes and cars is an "away with the fairies" notion.
I can tell you though that many US Higher-Ed loans, which are very easily obtained, are used for many purposes not originally intended e.g. vacations, buying cars, buying expensive personal items etc.
The student loan issue is a bubble that will soon burst though, as it is not sustainable. It needs to be totally reformed.

So refund the fees of everyone who is alive. That I would support.

There is a massive disparity here where the few's debts get paid off by the general populace. I think if Sanders or like-minded won the primary, this would be a major issue in the election.

Does it matter that someone else gets paid off? No. Do people care about it anyway? Absolutely.

kowloon

It'd be a kick in the teeth for anyone who who has lived on the cheap to cover their loan. I prefer how we do it though. Although, I gather the registration fee has gone way up since my days which seems like a return to fees.

osarusan

If you want to make education cheaper/free, or cancel debt, there is always going to be a cut-off point and some people are going to be the last ones to have to pay full whack.

That will make them justifiably pissed off, but in itself isn't a reason not to do it.

Firstly, there is the obvious question of whether they can afford it, and what the wider impact would be.

Secondly, what I wonder is whether they'd just pay for everything, or end up having to judiciously evaluate the quality of some courses/institutions and whether it's something they can justify paying for/subsiding.

As an example, are they going to pay for students to go to Liberty University and study at the Center for Creation Studies, where they 'teach concepts of the creation model, describe creationist research, and glorify the Creator of the heavens and the Earth'?

biko

When Bernie/Warren/some in this thread says it should be free, it really just means someone else will pay for your tuition (uni fees, your teacher's salary, books etc).
You do realise this?
Are you willing to pay extra tax for someone else's tuition? I am not willing to pay for yours.

biko

biko wrote: »

When Bernie/Warren/some in this thread says it should be free, it really just means someone else will pay for your tuition (uni fees, your teacher's salary, books etc).
You do realise this?
Are you willing to pay extra tax for someone else's tuition? I am not willing to pay for yours.

Are you worth millions? Because they're the people they want to tax. Not people who are earning less than 100,000 a year.

ILoveYourVibes

He can't fullfill it. He might be able to cancel part of it for some people though. But he isn't being honest about what he can accomplish.

People owe the equivalent of a mortgage in US. It would push the country into economic crisis banks and loan companies would go under.


What they SHOULD do in the US is start capping tuition fees in all colleges. Colleges in the states have really over luxurious campuses.

kowloon

osarusan wrote: »

Secondly, what I wonder is whether they'd just pay for everything, or end up having to judiciously evaluate the quality of some courses/institutions and whether it's something they can justify paying for/subsiding.

As an example, are they going to pay for students to go to Liberty University and study at the Center for Creation Studies, where students 'teach concepts of the creation model, describe creationist research, and glorify the Creator of the heavens and the Earth'?

If you look at it from the other end, a pay for everything situation with no controls would be a perfect environment to set up a fraud educational establishment and rake in the cash. With people not paying out of their own pocket it wouldn't be worth their time taking it through the courts. Trump could always have a go at setting up Trump University 2 if he's voted out.

kowloon

biko wrote: »

When Bernie/Warren/some in this thread says it should be free, it really just means someone else will pay for your tuition (uni fees, your teacher's salary, books etc).
You do realise this?
Are you willing to pay extra tax for someone else's tuition? I am not willing to pay for yours.

I'm fine with it, it increases numbers in education, makes for a more educated populace which benefits society. Ireland has done well since increasing access to third level education. I see education as an opportunity everyone deserves.

Manic Moran

There is a difference between making education free, which may see multiple different benefits to society, and cancelling debts.

osarusan wrote: »

If you want to make education cheaper/free, or cancel debt, there is always going to be a cut-off point and some people are going to be the last ones to have to pay full whack.

That will make them justifiably pissed off, but in itself isn't a reason not to do it.

Fully agreed. So maybe it's worth phasing in at 5%/year or something, partially so that the economy can equilibrate, and partially to reduce that resentment or 'shock'. But I wouldn't suggest doing anything until after the problem of the raw costs is dealt with first. Forcing the taxpayer to pay overpriced education fees isn't much of an improvement over forcing the individual to do it.

However, even the folks at the 'cut-off-point' will know what they are getting in for, and can make the rational choice for themselves if they want to incur debt, find some other way of paying for it (eg military) or just live really cheap. Blank repayment is going to definitely irk a whole bunch of folks who made more fiscally conservative decisions.

So refund the fees of everyone who is alive. That I would support.

The US is currently arguing over reparations for events a century and a half ago.... Why confine it to folks who are alive?
A slightly less rhetorical question could cover career progression. If two folks graduate with the same degree, but one did a six year stint in the military to pay for it before joining the same company as the other bloke, that person is perpetually going to be six years behind in his career progression on the civilian side. Six years behind in seniority, in pay scale, because he chose to have someone else pay for his education. The balance, unlike the chap ahead of him, he doesn't have a stupid amount of debt. Wipe out that debt, and where's the equity for the chap behind?

The big draw for the US military and US pro sports is the "free ride" to university

Bit of a misconception, actually. The single biggest draw for the US military is 'family tradition'. In a nation where about 7.3% of people have served in the military, 85% of recruits have a family member who served. It's a significant the cause of the disproportionate recruitment sources by State: Lots of veterans settle their families near where they have been posted, and the next generation hops in.
In a survey in 2018, 41% cited adventure/travel as a reason for joining the Army, it was the most commonly cited reason. "Call to serve" got about 30%. Benefits, including the GI Bill, was about 33%. (Note, respondents could give more than one response.) Arguably, the GI Bill (Education) is not the most important benefit: VA mortgage guarantees, healthcare in retirement and the pension are right up there. There are doubtless a number who join because of the college benefits, but it's not as many as you might think. That's not to say the benefit should be dropped, it could be the difference between making quotient and not, and regardless of cause, over 70% of military personnel end up using the GI Bill. (Again, see merits of an educated population)

Well if you have free education that than means the money will come from the tax payer, which means a higher tax rate. One of the benefits for US is their salaries are higher and they don't pay as much tax as here

Ryann Plump Axe

Ryann Plump Axe wrote: »

Well if you have free education that than means the money will come from the tax payer, which means a higher tax rate. One of the benefits for US is their salaries are higher and they don't pay as much tax as here

My point was that you would have a part of American society with degrees and masters with more opportunities than those without. The money has to come from somewhere to pay that debt off. It's unfair.

10000maniacs

Four years of Trumps policies followed by four years of Sanders doing idiotic stuff like this followed by a recession. A perfect storm.

Graces7

kowloon wrote: »

I'm fine with it, it increases numbers in education, makes for a more educated populace which benefits society. Ireland has done well since increasing access to third level education. I see education as an opportunity everyone deserves.

We in the UK got grants for university, means tested on parents income, just as we had free health care with the NHS. It was a fair system ensuring that poorer families could still educate gifted children.

The entry system was stricter though, and degrees far far harder to attain. Further Ed colleges were simply an extension of schools and also free.

NB this was in the 1960s .

Wanderer78

Deleted User wrote:

I was a big Sanders fan in 2016, and up until now.. But I read a post basically saying that cancelling the debt of those who have the most opportunities in society, and placing that cost on the rest, was pretty much absurd.

How would this cost be placed on the rest? With student debt levels now at an eye watering 1.5 trillion, cancelling it might just be a great way of stimulating an economy. Debt jubilees are certainly controversial, but historically have been shown to be successful at stimulating economies, and with private debt levels at an all time high, it might just work.

Deleted User wrote:

I believe in free education ala Ireland, but the logic in a one-line post has made me wonder a lot about the fairness of it. The people who paid themselves through uni, or who couldn't contemplate enormous fees in America, will be objectively worse off than the folks who would have their debt cancelled.

We don't have free education in Ireland, ask any parent, we all pay some form of taxation and fees towards it, again the missing word is 'subsidised'.

Or how about this for an alternative:

Offer to replace current student debt with "pay it forward system".

A certain agreed and fixed percentage of your annual net salary (according to your tax return) gets donated, tax free to the college every year.

Fixed lifetime contract.

Colleges then can battle with each other as to how much to charge.

I would imagine it would be anywhere from .25% - 3%. It would also need to reviewed by the college annually, with rates going up and down.

suicide_circus

wiping the debt 100% seems a tad unfair to the tax payer, i would suggest these people still pay some percentage of their debt with help from the tax payer but not 100%

Donald Trump

FFS. Just increase income taxes overall for higher earnings. Simple. The state educates you and you pay back if you do well out of it. All it does is spread the risk out a bit.

Education in US is very expensive (without scholarship). I reckon most on here don't realise exactly how so. Their frame of reference is probably protests at having to pay the couple of grand "registration fee" in Ireland.

Granted you can go on about "but but if one bother goes to the in-state college due to costs and the other one goes out-of-state and runs up a higher debt why should we bail out the second one" well that's still beside the point. You can go in-state and have reduced fees but that is still getting subsidized by the state (directly or indirectly).

The only issue with moving to a more accessible or subsudized model would be how to deal with the college's expenditure. Or perhaps you could have a two-tier model on public and private.

The likes of private colleges such as Harvard are extremely wealthy. What you might not expect though is that a very high proportion of their students actually get academic scholarships and so is actually potentially accessible to a very bright kid (ignoring the fact that Harvard etc. might never be on the radar of a poor kid, but if it was and they were exceptionally smart, they could potentially attend and have little debt at the end of it). Harvard has an endowment fund - driven by alumni gifts and invested - of over 37 billion USD.

The previous paragraph is just to point out that it is not the likes of the elite Ivy-League that are causing the debt. Ironically, students who get into those places often have little debt and walk into massively well-paying jobs. It's the likes of teachers etc who don't get relatively well paid in the US who struggle.

G'wan the Bernie

Donald Trump

Manic Moran wrote: »

A slightly less rhetorical question could cover career progression. If two folks graduate with the same degree, but one did a six year stint in the military to pay for it before joining the same company as the other bloke, that person is perpetually going to be six years behind in his career progression on the civilian side. Six years behind in seniority, in pay scale, because he chose to have someone else pay for his education. The balance, unlike the chap ahead of him, he doesn't have a stupid amount of debt. Wipe out that debt, and where's the equity for the chap behind?

That's not quite true though is it? Unless you are saying that time in the military counts of nothing and no skills are learned there? A 28 year old graduating with a degree after doing his 6 years + 4 years college vs a 22 year old just fresh out of the same 4 years with the same degree? Those two are not equal. No way is the veteran six years behind other 28 year olds in terms of anything civilian. Of course they'll be a little bit but that applies to anyone changing career. Never mind that it is often legal for employers to have an explicit policy of having a preference for veterans when hiring.

Lackadaisical

The scale of the student debts in the US is frightening. Two friends of mine (married couple) in their late 30s both did law and are both involved now in fairly public focused legal stuff - would be on good but not huge money by any means and have a fairly modest house in Western Massachusetts.

Their combined college loans are about $650,000 which is significantly more than the value of their house.

A lot of people end up in those kinds of situations where they run up huge student loans and then their incomes, minus mortgage expenditure is way less than the mega bucks you'd think someone might earn if they've a particular type of degree and postgraduate education.

It also excludes a lot of lower middle income families from 3rd level entirely and graduate degrees are extremely out of reach for many which just means you're in a society that values education but also prevents access to it for most.

They'd need to completely change the funding model for universities along side any write down as there's no way this could be funded otherwise long term. The collective bill has to be astronomically huge.

rossie1977

Us government spend more public money on higher education per capita than the Irish government do

Donald Trump

Lackadaisical wrote: »

The scale of the student debts in the US is frightening. Two friends of mine (married couple) in their late 30s both did law and are both involved now in fairly public focused legal stuff - would be on good but not huge money by any means and have a fairly modest house in Western Massachusetts.

Their combined college loans are about $650,000 which is significantly more than the value of their house.

A lot of people end up in those kinds of situations where they run up huge student loans and then their incomes, minus mortgage expenditure is way less than the mega bucks you'd think someone might earn if they've a particular type of degree and postgraduate education.

It also excludes a lot of lower middle income families from 3rd level entirely and graduate degrees are extremely out of reach for many which just means you're in a society that values education but also prevents access to it for most.

They'd need to completely change the funding model for universities along side any write down as there's no way this could be funded otherwise long term. The collective bill has to be astronomically huge.

Law is a particular problem. Up to say the late 90's, having a law degree was almost licence to print money. Obviously more and more people get sucked in - the law schools up their fees. Then you have all these graduates coming out and struggling to get jobs. It's a massive problem. But if you want to be a lawyer, you need to take those two years off work after your undergraduate and go and pay those fees. It's not like in Ireland where you effectively do an apprenticeship - perhaps, but not necessarily, after studying law as an undergraduate


Edit: Above is in relation to US

lawred2

biko wrote: »

Canceling the between 1.6 trillion dollars debt isn't going to help, other than to get votes for Bernie.
He said it would cost approximately $2.2 trillion to cancel student debt and make all public colleges in the U.S. free.

Warren is thinking about it too.

Though their plans offer different approaches to cancelling student debt, both Sanders and Warren are proposing to pay for their plans either through a tax on wealthy Americans or activities that wealthy Americans are more likely to take part in.

Is it not just money owed to themselves though?

kowloon

Wanderer78 wrote: »

We don't have free education in Ireland, ask any parent, we all pay some form of taxation and fees towards it, again the missing word is 'subsidised'.

The registration fee has leapt up since my days, although I gather you can get that covered by the grant if you qualify.

pure.conya

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

I think cancelling student debt is one of the most forward thinking policies out there.

Trumps policies banking on the trickledown effect from corporations and wealthy individuals have proven hollow.Most of the Corporations just did massive share buybacks and most of the wealthy individuals carried on as normal.

If you cancel student debt 90% of these people will put that money into the real economy, buying housing, cars etc.

I think its incredibly wrong to think, well i paid off my debt why should someone else get a free ride. There should be an acknowledgement that students should never of been put into that level of debit in the first place, and its wrong that they feel the need to serve in the armed forces to get college tuition paid for.

Out of every candidate running Sanders is the only one whom i would support, he gives his views and sticks with them, he is telling it like it is and the 1% of super wealthy individuals are going to be brought into check if he becomes president.

We could do with more like him in this country, rather than our current troup of publicans, school teachers and wasters.

Sanders is a shill and all it will take is for Obama to knock on his door for good old bernie to row in behind hillary again