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by kenneth 2022 days ago
Which is precisely what's wrong with neo-liberalism these days. A massive lack of rationality.

Cancelling college debt is about as screwed up an idea as one can come up with. It rewards exactly the wrong behavior, and is subsidized by those most deserving of a reward. Those who rack up unsustainable debt, picking expensive schools to earn degrees the market doesn't value, then go on to not repay those debts stand to gain the most from this. Meanwhile, those who take personal responsibility and sacrifice to make their college education sustainable — who went to cheaper colleges, who worked their way through it, who sacrificed their lifestyle post-graduation to get their debts paid off — are subsidizing the cost of that giveaway. It's a massive transfer of wealth from the responsible to the irresponsible.

4 comments

This. If you can cancel college debt, colleges will more willingly dump piles of debt onto their students as well. It will also fuel the soaring cost of education to go even higher.

The problem is that debt financing is given to people who never should have gotten it in the first place. You should not give loans to such bad investments, not pay off the bad investments while allowing continued issuance of debt.

If they cancel college debts, then can I get a refund for having paid my college debt!
I better get reparations for the full amount paid if the the government cancels all student debt.
Governments forgiving student loans doesn't seem very neoliberal to me. In fact I'd say it's pretty much the opposite of neoliberalism's free market approach.
I's say the government issuing that debt in the first place is already counter to neoliberalism.