[microcolonel]

But who pays? The fools who bought the loans, or the public who mostly paid theirs (if they ever took any to begin with)? I suspect that everyone will pay, despite a minority of people benefiting, that hardly seems just.

I don't think it's predatory, I think the lendee is a fool being led by the blind; but does that make it right for it to suddenly be everyone else's burden?

People make dumb decisions that affect only them all the time; when is it suddenly my business to subsidize people's personal mistakes? Are they even mistakes at all, if the debt is forgiven without prejudice? I don't want to live in a world where taking a loan you have no intention of paying is not a mistake.

Also, AFAIK a huge majority of student loans are held directly by the Federal government (which is the other reason I fear "forgiveness" is on the horizon); assuming you don't mean to call the Federal government a "predatory bank".

[isbjorn16]

> taking a loan you have no intention of paying

I'm not sure what sort of people you've run into, but I've never met a single person who ever took any loan out with no intention of paying on it.

The problem is "intention" and "ability" aren't inextricably linked. My brother has defaulted on his loan; he agonizes over it every single day. He has every intention of paying, but he's left with 32$ a month after rent, the cheapest, most basic of utilities, rice, beans, and the occasional leafy green, and health insurance. His apartment was 43 degrees during the winter because he couldn't afford to heat it.

32$ isn't going to pay down his debt, and there's nothing he can currently do to change that. I'm certain he'd LOVE to. There's nothing he wants more than to keep his current standard of living, but make enough money to pay his debt off (edit: and do note that his current standard of living _sucks_).

I find it a bit disconcerting that your mind immediately goes toward intention and doesn't even seem to consider ability. I'm certain there are those who take out loans with no intention to pay on them, but much like the welfare queen propaganda of the 90's, it seems like that specific problem is blown entirely out of proportion of the reality.

[microcolonel]

You're making a counterpoint to something I did not say.

I'm saying that taking the loan is no longer ever a mistake, because you can expect that you will never need to pay, if you wait long enough: hence "where taking a loan you have no intention of paying is not a mistake".

> the cheapest, most basic of utilities, rice, beans, and the occasional leafy green, and health insurance

I'm sorry to hear that, I suspect that I'll need to be housing my brothers some time in the next decade too, so I can feel that. Is there some problem with SNAP and Medicaid that's preventing him from taking them? Is housing just so costly where he lives that he's insolvent despite not being below the "poverty plus" lines for those programs?

[isbjorn16]

Correct me if I'm wrong - I think I now see the disconnect we (or better put, I) had and I'm sorry I didn't see it before.

If there's no financial or legal penalties for discharging the loan debt due to bankruptcy, people may be more apt to go that route, disrupting the entire lending system.

If that's right, and I read the rest of your comment in that context, you're basically lamenting the fact that there's no outrageous material downsides for people being taken by duplicitous lenders and education institutions. And if that's also what you meant, then I agree; that's certainly a problem that would need to be solved as well if blanket debt forgiveness were to occur. That seems to be just as untenable a situation as the one we have now - and by my view, the situation we have now is wildly untenable and is going to hobble our entire country and economy for decades to come if we don't change _something_.

I'm going to stop riffing on "and if"s, though - that's just doubling down on the same mistake I made earlier. My apologies!

[microcolonel]

Yeah, sorry for not making it clearer at the outset. I'm coming from the perspective of somebody who is building a product to (among other things) help people prevent household debt from ruining their lives (starting here in Canada); and I've given out a lot of loans in the family to prevent debt spirals, so I definitely feel for people in this position.

At the same time, my personal experience is completely different. I was difficult in primary school, probably because of family issues. I dropped out effectively before high school, and started doing contract work (and eventually full time work at 17) on software. I got my start based on little more than natural confidence and many hours of reading Wikipedia and StackOverflow from about age 8, eventually on my first personal computer, which I bought at 14 with about 95% of the money (I always begged for cash instead of toys and hometown giftshop trinkets) I'd received in my life. After biking about two hours a day just for work (rain or shine, usually rain it seemed), I decided to leave home to be closer to work and farther from my mother, and I was lucky enough to have a friend who would let me crash on his couch for a few months.

Even with the rather extreme subsidies here in Ontario, I couldn't really afford to take time to go to school; I could now, but I probably don't need to. That's basically why I feel that it would be unjust if I moved to the U.S. (I'm a citizen) and that started immediately with paying off other people's loans that the federal government gave out like candy, for something I couldn't even afford to buy if it were free.

[isbjorn16]

Side note: I was given my first student loan when I was 17. I was the only signatory.

I'm still not sure how that was allowed; at least it's an amusing anecdote, though.

[isbjorn16]

> I'm sorry to hear that, is there some problem with SNAP and Medicaid that's preventing him from taking them? Is housing just so costly where he lives that he's insolvent despite not being below the "poverty plus" lines for those programs?

Nailed it! Seattle is not an inexpensive city. Before expenses he's actually doing quite well for himself, in theory - especially compared to federal poverty guidelines - for a college drop-out. But those guidelines that are probably pretty feasible in West Virginia or Kansas are so far beyond useless to someone in a larger metro, it's kind of insane.

So no dice on SNAP or expanded Medicaid (Apple Health, in WA). It's a shame because without the insurance premiums, he'd actually be able to make all of his loan payments, even without extending them or doing an IBR type thing.

[microcolonel]

I know it's probably not the first time you've heard this, but moving just slightly out of Seattle (I'm assuming the family ties are pretty damn important, I know it's a huge part of why I'm still in Ontario, so no big moves) could have a huge impact. I recently moved in to my mother's house because I don't want to live the ramen life again while working at a startup. She was, in turn, able to afford this place because it's in Hamilton, ON and not Toronto.

To my eyes, it seems that high-minded zoning and planning (especially insidious nonsense like minimum house sizes, lawn setbacks for bungalows that would be enough for a five-storey building), and the mindset comes with, have made and kept housing extremely expensive in major cities in the U.S. and Canada. I think you can do a lot better outside of Seattle, with the main bottleneck being transport time (and possibly not being able to stay with the same company).

I know it's a cliché, but I think a lot of people will find that they like the slightly-less-exciting life in a second-tier city once they're there; I know I prefer being in Hamilton to being in Toronto in many ways. On the flip side, I know somebody who seems to really prefer living in Seattle despite working in Redmond. These are, of course, the more privileged thoughts that you can have about where you live.

P.S. if you reply and don't see anything pop up; I'm probably not just ignoring you. Hacker News has this health-promoting but annoying feature of rate limiting submissions for a given user. When I hit my limit (which is often), it often takes about four hours (or possibly more, dunno) to clear.

[isbjorn16]

Oh, I feel the move; we're actually from rural Appalachia. He came to Seattle because I'm here and I supported him financially for close to a year until he finally got his feet even remotely under himself. The wilds of Western PA are a rough place to get a start for anyone, and not having a college degree makes it even worse. He spent 4 years trying to find a job other than being a cook at a crusty hole-in-the-wall dive bar with no luck. I convinced him the opportunity was at least better out here, and he made the leap. His wage went up 230% from before and he's closer to 30 hours than the 18 he got previously, so it's far more lucrative, but the COL is also at least 400% more (you can rent an apartment where he lived prior for about 350-450$ a month). Without public transportation of any sort, though, you also need a car, insurance, gas, blah blah blah - and the ~550$ he made a month gross just wasn't going to cut it.

He really is better off here, but he'd REALLY be better off in a second tier city - exactly like you said. That's hard to pull off when you don't have a couch to crash on for a while while you get started, though. At this point he's tried literally every option besides hitch hiking and being homeless, and he isn't too keen to try that; at least now he has a roof and rice and beans, you know?

[oldjokes]

We could slice 10% (maybe less) off the military budget and pay for college for everyone, forever. This "who pays" nonsense is just that: nonsense.

I'm sure the Navy would find a way to make do with a mere nine aircraft carriers.

If you're worried about freeloaders getting welfare they don't deserve then slashing the insanely corrupt grifting that goes on every day in DHS/Defense should be your top priority.

[zeveb]

> We could slice 10% (maybe less) off the military budget and pay for college for everyone, forever.

According to Wikipedia, 'the approved 2019 Department of Defense budget is $686.1 billion.' In the 2015–2016 academic year, colleges and universities spent $559 billion (https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=75). So 10% of the military budget would pay for a little over 12% of collegiate spending.

[servercobra]

That $559 billion is including all the money the government (states, mostly?) already gives to schools that they then spend. GP was talking about (I assume) covering tuition, which is estimated between $50 billion and $75 billion from the articles [0] I can find. That lines up with ~10% of the military budget.

[0] one example: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/07/28/487794394/hillary...

[cr0sh]

> In the 2015–2016 academic year, colleges and universities spent $559 billion

Talking out my nether regions here - but is that broken out in any way?

Basically - I'm wondering how much of that spending is on actual academics vs non-academic activities?

[drocer88]

Perhaps we could cut back on entitlements , too. That would bring bigger savings and help with the governmental fiscal responsibility thing. Lower debt would let people keep more of their money to spend on making their lives better.

[yardie]

Entitlements are exactly that. You, the taxpayer, paid for them, you are entitled to use them. How about we cut the things we pay for but aren't entitled to use, like the military.

[MisterBastahrd]

Fun thing about "personal fiscal responsibility" is that almost everyone preaching about it when talking about entitlements have either never been poor in their lives or are grifters looking for acceptance from those who have never been poor in their lives.

[tehjoker]

The point is to make life easier for people, not harder.

[MagicPropmaker]

I was very careful not to take on student debt. I personally chose a low-cost college and took as many first and second year required courses at a community college. I would be very angry if I had to bail out people who lived on The Farm, or in an Animal House frathouse for 6 years.