[e40]

Or "forgive all student loans" ... (I believe we should immediately reset the interest rates to 0 or some slightly larger nominal value, and immediately close all loans that have paid more than the original principle) ... but I don't know how this works to just forgive all of them.

[rootusrootus]

The problem with forgiving the loans is not economic. It would be trivial to do, and the economic consequences probably positive.

It is a moral hazard. First, it amounts to a giveaway to people aren't necessarily all that sympathetic -- people who can afford to go to college at all, even if they borrowed money to do it. Remember how much of the population couldn't even get that far. Second, any kind of student debt jubilee without first reforming the system just invites every future student to take as many loans as possible with the expectation that they too will have their debt forgiven.

[Thrymr]

Sure we could. We "forgive" lots of debts in bankruptcy proceedings already, but student loans have a high bar discharge in bankruptcy. Historically debt forgiveness has a long history, as David Graeber and others have shown:

https://novaramedia.com/2021/08/30/david-graeber-was-right-a...

[e40]

Yes, I know we could. This sums up my thoughts better than I could:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30533995

[rpmisms]

Yeah, it's an economic absurdity. I agree with you, your proposal is very fair.

[TomSwirly]

> Yeah, it's an economic absurdity.

Again, can you show us the numbers? "A guy claimed it was so on the Internet" isn't really useful later as a source.

[rpmisms]

Sure. According to https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/, there's $1.75t in outstanding student loan debt in the US. You can just print the money and contribute to the huge inflation the Fed is already wrangling, but that's a very short-sighted move.