[daenz]

The student loan forgiveness debate is such a mess. Here's just a sampling of the arguments I've seen, and I'm inclined to think there's some validity to all of them:

  * Loan forgiveness creates perverse incentives
  * If we can afford to forgive/bail-out X, then we can do student loans
  * This punishes everyone who was responsible with their loans
  * This is a huge relief to everyone with student loans
  * Why should everyone else have to pay for your bad choices
  * College should be free anyways, this is that, with extra steps

[readthenotes1]

The college loan programs obviously already created perverse incentives. It should come as no surprise that the loan forgiveness does as well.

It is almost as if there's some motivation other than to allow children of poor families to obtain a college education.

As for the college should be free anyways like it is in Europe, then perhaps we should administer universities like they do in Europe. Only a few select students are allowed to go and they don't provide training leagues for professional sports teams.

[dudul]

"A few select students"?? Maybe in some countries, but in plenty of countries it's whoever wants to go. That's the problem when talking about "europe", it's not a homogeneous group of countries.

As for training leagues, they still have professional sport teams in Europe right?

[daenz]

Which countries don't have university acceptance rates? I looked at Denmark and Sweden, they still exclude people. Someone mentioned in Germany if you don't get accepted, you go on a waiting list.

[dudul]

AFAIK France is an example where graduating high school is the only requirement.

[malermeister]

Austria comes to mind.

[yeuxardents]

Good point about free college, most people don't realize that college is not the same in Europe as it is in America, there are reasons for it being able to be free.

[1659447091]

Could you expand on the reasons for it being able to be free?

I had no idea until just now that it was free. TIL

[_nalply]

It's not free but affordable.

Terminology is not the same, however.

When I was twenty years old I enrolled at the University of Bern for Computer Science. For that I had to go to preparatory school (Gymnasium) between 15 and 19 years old. It was a harsh school. I learnt the languages French, Latin and English and I had to write essays in German. Then there was geography, math, biology, chemistry, physics, human sciences, programming. Finally there was a round of examinations. 4 hours of math, 4 hours of essay in German, 2 hours of essay in French, oral examinations, etc.

For the university I had to pay about 1000 francs, about 2000 dollars a year for tuition (the conversion rate is somewhat arbitrary because 30 years ago the conversion rate was completely different, so look at this more like a ballpark figure). I was able to pay this myself because I had some odd jobs financing myself. I could live at my parent's the first years then I moved out into an appartment sharing with friends.

This is typical for Europe: students usually are able to finance themselves.

[malermeister]

> Only a few select students are allowed to go

What are you talking about? I went to university in Europe and literally everyone with a high school degree is allowed to go.

[daenz]

I tried to verify the claim. At least for Sweden, their universities still have an acceptance rate, with the highest being 80%, and the next highest being 35%[0]. Denmark's highest acceptance rates are in the upper 70s, low 80s[1].

Yes the acceptance rates are relatively high, but the fact that they have an acceptance rates for their universities suggests that not everyone who wants to go to university can.

0. https://www.sabonews.org/universities-in-sweden-with-high-ac... 1. https://uscollegeinternational.com/universities-in-denmark-w...

[tarboreus]

In Germany you just go on a waiting list if you don't get in. If you really suck the waiting list is pretty long, but you can still go.

[colinsane]

i think for a lot of us it came out of left field: i assumed our congress was too divided to pass something of this sort, so i never really sorted out my thoughts on the actual idea.

turns out i neglected to consider that loan forgiveness could happen without congress. my jerk reaction was fairly negative: not because i had thought critically about loan forgiveness, but because at a certain level i recognized that we just engaged in a very large act of redistribution almost completely outside the democratic process, and it’s hard to move past that mental shock and confront the outcomes objectively and separate from the process.

[zaroth]

It probably can’t happen without congress. But can you even imagine the shitshow when half a trillion in debt that was wiped out somehow has to be put back on the books?!

[akvadrako]

It seems like it can happen without congress. I agree it's illegal, but the issue is that nobody has standing to bring a lawsuit to the courts:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32623433

[jkaplowitz]

The article linked there is a pretty good analysis of the obstacles to challenging it in federal court just by virtue of the action occurring, but it doesn't foreclose all possibilities. (And it's not obviously illegal to me, but that's irrelevant to the standing question.)

Imagine this scenario: A loan servicer neglects to adjust the amount a student loan borrower owes based on this action (or views it as illegal and intentionally doesn't adjust it), and bills the old amount.

If the borrower pays the higher amount, they may have standing to reclaim the overpayment under the argument that it was validly canceled. If they are not in the same state as the servicer, diversity jurisdiction might allow this to occur in federal court, and this overpayment is probably sufficiently concrete, particularized, and personal to generate Article III standing.

If the borrower pays the Biden-adjusted lower amount, then debt collection efforts may start and there may be a credit report impact, when with correct servicer implementation of the cancelation no debt would be sent to collections. There are all sorts of opportunities for standing to be created here, such as if a federal or state debt collection statute is violated by the servicer or if the borrower has another financial consequence (like a refused or higher-rate mortgage) from the inaccurately reduced credit score.

If any of this manages to land in state court, standing requirements can constitutionally be weaker anyway depending on the requirements of the state constitution.

So, we'll see, but it can probably be tested in the courts somehow, unless the Administrative Procedure Act rules somehow preempt any other lawsuit at all from using "Biden's action was illegal" as an argument in the service of some other cause of action.

[rufus_foreman]

Here's the biggest one. There will be a reduction in the maximum percentage of a borrower's income that they will need to pay per month for a loan and a reduction in the number of years until the debt is wiped out.

Colleges are going to be looking at this and deciding they can charge whatever they want - no one is ever going to have to pay it back. Whatever limits are in these laws (sorry, rules, this isn't a law), they will charge up to those limits, whatever loopholes there are in these rules, they will find them.

Take a look at how law schools are working the existing loan forgiveness programs. That's going to be every college now. I'm too old to switch careers, and I'm not a psychopath, but this makes me want to completely drop any moral scruples I have and get into the education fraud business. People are going to get filthy, and technically legally, rich.

[daenz]

How could you even get into that business? It seems like something that only the university administration and the lenders can participate in.

[rufus_foreman]

Leveraged buyouts of existing accredited colleges or trade schools.