I would give this argument more credit if you were not asking 18-21 year olds to make a decision that will financially impact their whole lives. At that age most people do not have the financial knowledge, maturity or experience to make the best decisions.
Most young people are able to understand the idea of having to repay a loan, and most have parents or other older advisers that they can turn to to help make informed decisions. Look, I'm not totally against federal aid to help repay student loan debt, but people have to get over this idea that the US government can just borrow, borrow, borrow to give away more freebies to folks who could use a hand. If we, as a people, feel that providing aid for student debt is something that we want to do, then we ought to first figure out where the money is going to come from.
He's going to have to find a huge pile of money that Congress has already authorized to be spent on educational programs or something similar. A president can't usurp the Constitutional authority of Congress to tax and spend. That doesn't mean that Biden couldn't be creative in spending other authorized funds, but it's going to take a butt-load of bucks to write off all of the student loans floating around out there.
Biden is proposing free state school undergraduate programs, which frankly, is long overdue. But you better bet the GOP would be against that too. Nearly every developed country (hell, even some developing ones) offer free public education thru 4 yrs of college. There's a reason we have to import talent through H1Bs and the like so much. Every republican administration results in an effective brain drain in this country.
They're owed to the government, they don't need to create $ to eliminate them. And now all the sudden we are concerned about executive order overreach?!
I don't think that your bookkeeping would pass muster. Some are federal loans, but a lot are private loans from lending institutions backed by federal programs. I don't think a president can just dash off an EO and suddenly override the legislative provisions that funded the loan programs. I've been concerned about EO overreach for a long time. It's ramped up with each of the past few administrations due to the great partisan divide as an end-around to actually cutting deals with Congress. You know, the way it's supposed to work?
I think we both fundamentally agree that school is too expensive. I don't fully agree with paying off people's school debts for similar reason you bring up. I guess we differ in the fact that I don't believe anyone who is a US citizen should have to borrow any money for an education. I don't care if that education is a doctor, scientists, actor or underwater basket weaver. All of these people are a value to our society fiscally or culturally. If we are serious about maintaining our superpower status we need educated people and our government should invest in them. It's not even asking a lot, this generation is only asking for the same advantages their parents or grandparents had. As far as your claim that people of this age group have good financial sense or generally have people to help them make decisions, I feel that comment is out of touch with most people and you have forgot what being 18-21 was like.
definitely should take a look at cost back in medieval times when I went to the U of Oregon, 1970, my cost fro tuition AND room & board in a dorm was $1500. I had to buy my own books though so then in today's dollars: now, I just checked the Uof O costs: in other words, about 2.6 times more than just the adjusted cost of inflation. Something(s) are definitely adding expense to an education
Whats funny about that tweet...most of the people who had to take out student loans are the sons and daughters of the same group of people they're claiming are getting screwed by eliminating student loan debt. It's implying that these are just kids who just took out student loans for the sake of having sex and learning nothing. Seems to imply that those who don't go to college learn tons and have no sex. I can testify that I learned tons in college and barely any sex in college and my parents were blue collar workers. But hey, any way you can scare poor people from thinking rich peoples kids are just taking your money away, go for it!
To piggy back on this some, that tweet also implies that the only people taking loans are kids and nobody who goes to school sacrifices anything in thier lives. School is hard, and you either do it while working or you put off working to do it. The local community colleges are full of 30 somethings with kids, struggling to keep it together and make a better life for their families.
It also makes the assumption that there are no plumbers, fire fighters, garbage collectors, etc. that took out student loans to go to school. A firefighter has to get there EMT certification. Yes, its a 2 year certificate, but plenty of them could be taking out loans for it. I know a few tradespeople that started in it after school, with student loans. What a shit take.
I loved it there until some asshole broke my guitar right as I was gonna score with some hippie chicks...
