[GongOfFour]

This is silly. What if you chose to go to a smaller school so you paid for college out of pocket? Should you get paid for the opportunity cost of not going to the expensive liberal arts school?

Forgiving debt isn't about you, it's about unburdening an entire generation of working people so they aren't forever under the thumb of financial institutions. Undoing federal guarantees is also about rightsizing academia, which has bloated itself on these ever growing loan numbers.

[leereeves]

> What if you chose to go to a smaller school so you paid for college out of pocket?

Another reason that loan forgiveness would be unfair. And what about people who learned a trade instead of paying for an overpriced college? Or poor people who didn't go to college because their underfunded neighborhood high school didn't prepare them for college?

America has already had too many bailouts to save the privileged from the consequences of their own decisions.

[benatkin]

Not only that, it's a reason that those who don't owe money on their loans might be struggling financially due to missed career or even social opportunities of going to a smaller (read: often crappy) school.

[benatkin]

> Forgiving debt isn't about you

You're helping to make GP's point. You are saying that those who owe money are more important to this conversation without knowing anything else about them.

[ketzo]

From an economic standpoint, they are more important.

People with massive, life-ruining debt are more important for us to help than people who graduated debt-free or who got jobs/careers that let them pay off their debt.

If you can divorce yourself from a kindergarten-esque "fairness" complaint, it's pretty obvious that yeah, we should (unfairly!) help people who are being destroyed by debt.

[benatkin]

> we should (unfairly!) help people who are being destroyed by debt

The plans are to forgive 10K of debt per person. There is a crazy suggestion of forgiving 50K of debt per person but let's just ignore that (it costs more than a trillion).

People who owe 100K are still fucked. They did go to better schools, though, so they have better jobs. Many also have good connections, because they have an easier time networking with their connections.

Wanna know who is more fucked?

Many people who didn't take loans and went to no-name schools and are working low paying jobs and have few social connections.

If we give money to either group it's a handout. For these politicians to pretend it's not a handout because it's forgiving a loan is disingenuous.

Elon Musk isn't wrong to poke fun at Elizabeth Warren. Let's just hope it doesn't result in another Trumpist president.

[meatsauce]

How is it unfair if they agreed to take on the debt?

If they went to school, got a degree, and a job, then they got what was promised and need to pay their commitments.

[310260]

Yes because those who still owe money are who it affects. Sure it sucks that people who already paid off their loans can't have them forgiven now but what's done is done. Can't accommodate every single person perfectly.

[meatsauce]

If you can't pay back a 50,000 or 100,000 loan in 10 years, you're doing something wrong.