[bigdollopenergy]

I'm so conflicted about this move.

On one hand you've got a generation that is being held back by these loans. The very people that are supposed to be starting businesses/building up capital/starting families and whom are the foundation of the future economy. When you view it through the lens of being an economic stimulus, it's actually a pretty good one and will likely be a net-positive in the long term.

On the other hand. While everyone is focused on the people who already paid theirs or who didn't get student loans to begin with, no one including this author ever properly addresses the impact on future students. As far as i can tell all future students are still going to have these huge loans (likely bigger) and this is a one time payout for current loan holders only. Those students are going to look back to now, see we got a one-time 10k payment courtesy of the taxpayer (which will be them) and rightly demand the same treatment. If they don't get it, they will view us as being just the same as the boomers were, cradle robbers that take advantage of the system and then take away the ladder once they are done.

We've essentially set in stone one of 3 paths. One, we periodically do these bailouts, probably blowing up tuition prices further so the students don't really benefit and the only winners are the loan companies+universities. Two, we commit to heavily reforming the system and fully paying for higher education. Or 3, we never do the bailout again and have future students not only pay for their own loans but service the debt we created just for ours as well. While i'd like for us to go with option 2, i don't think this is the likely path, it's too difficult and controversial to be done in the current political climate. The likely path, is that we're going to end up being just as morally bankrupt and selfish as the boomers collectively were.