Warren's massive $640 billion student loan cancellation questioned over fairness to students who paid off their debts

[Teh One Who Knocks]

You can't fight City Hall (or Uncle Sam)

[RBP]

Your right, I'm sure it was legislation that allowed the banks and universities to do this shit. Its like Clinton reversing glass steagall and banks went nuts giving out bad home loans, which of coarse caused a recession. These college loans are basically the same damn thing.

Banks have very little to do with student loans now. The Federal government handles them all. Universities use the extra money supply to bloat which ramps up tuition.

[fricnjay]

Banks have very little to do with student loans now. The Federal government handles them all. Universities use the extra money supply to bloat which ramps up tuition.

Your right, all that Fanny Mae shit.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Banks have very little to do with student loans now. The Federal government handles them all. Universities use the extra money supply to bloat which ramps up tuition.

But that won't happen anymore because not only is she going to cancel most student loan debt, she's going to make college free!

[fricnjay]

But that won't happen anymore because not only is she going to cancel most student loan debt, she's going to make college free!

[RBP]

Your right, all that Fanny Mae shit.

No, they completely took it over in 2010 by executive order of Obama.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/u...s/26loans.html

[Muddy]

No, they completely took it over in 2010 by executive order of Obama.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/u...s/26loans.html

So wheres the benefit of the overhaul? Who the f*ck got a better deal from this?

[RBP]

A couple more fun facts. Not only is there no credit review to get a loan, the government fully defers any payments as long as the student remains in a program - ANY program. So people take the loans, often more than tuition because it allows for living expenses, and stay perpetually in some program until they max the limits out. Then they are screwed.

Another dirty little secret? Most people don't graduate.
Public colleges: 33% (4 years), 58% (6 years)
Private colleges: 53%/65%
I've read that for-profit schools are the worst at about 23%, and I think the graduate program numbers generally are much worse than undergrad.

So not only useless degrees, but saddled with enormous debt with no degree at all.

[RBP]

So wheres the benefit of the overhaul? Who the f*ck got a better deal from this?

Great question.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

A couple more fun facts. Not only is there no credit review to get a loan, the government fully defers any payments as long as the student remains in a program - ANY program. So people take the loans, often more than tuition because it allows for living expenses, and stay perpetually in some program until they max the limits out. Then they are screwed.

Another dirty little secret? Most people don't graduate.
Public colleges: 33% (4 years), 58% (6 years)
Private colleges: 53%/65%
I've read that for-profit schools are the worst at about 23%, and I think the graduate program numbers generally are much worse than undergrad.

So not only useless degrees, but saddled with enormous debt with no degree at all.

Are you implying that a degree in Social Justice in Lesbian Theory is useless?

[fricnjay]

[Godfather]

I too am in the camp of 'why go to school for a useless degree and rack up $60k in debt' and I fully agree with RBP that there's an unhealthy obsession with everyone going to college.... but at the same time you can't tell me in this day and age that the only options that every smart person is built for are STEM or trades...when employers simultaneously expect a college degree to get work as a bank teller for minimum wage, and people fight against minimum wage increases because it's only meant to be 'entry level'. There's something missing in that equation.

Personally I agree not everyone should go to university, it should not be cost free, and I don't think all student loans should be written off... but I also don't think that if you do want to be a teacher or a historian, it should cost you tens of thousands of dollars more in debt than you could ever make working a minimum wage on the side (or wealthy parents) or even after years working in these more humble professions. Even doctors are drowning in student debt, and in Canada at least we need far more than we have. The cost of tuition in Canada is steep, and in the US it's mind blowing. There must be a balance here we can agree on.

[RBP]

I too am in the camp of 'why go to school for a useless degree and rack up $60k in debt' and I fully agree with RBP that there's an unhealthy obsession with everyone going to college.... but at the same time you can't tell me in this day and age that the only options that everyone is built for are STEM or trades...when employers simultaneously expect a college degree to get work as a bank teller for minimum wage, and people fight against minimum wage increases because it's only meant to be 'entry level'. There's something missing in that equation.

Personally I agree not everyone should go to university, it should not be cost free, and I don't think all student loans should be written off... but I also don't think that if you do want to be a teacher or a historian, it should cost you tens of thousands of dollars more in debt than you could ever make working a minimum wage on the side (or wealthy parents) or even after years working in these more humble professions. Even doctors are drowning in student debt, and in Canada at least we need far more than we have. The cost of tuition in Canada is steep, and in the US it's mind blowing. There must be a balance here we can agree on.

A 3-month coding boot camp lands you a job. It's not a happy medium needed, it's a reality check. The US university system will eventually collapse. And thankfully so.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Lukas Mikelionis | Fox News


Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s $1.25 trillion plan to cancel existing student loan debt and make college free has been slammed as a “sweeping bailout for the middle class” and a regressive giveaway to the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

“Her latest big idea — to eliminate vast quantities of student debt and make public universities tuition-free — is not a sound idea,” wrote the Washington Post’ editorial board on Tuesday.

Warren unveiled the far-reaching plan on Monday, pledging to cancel almost all student loan debt for 42 million Americans and introducing tuition-free college, with a total price tag of about $1.25 trillion over 10 years, including a one-off cost of $640 billion to cancel the debts.

Under the proposal, each person’s student debt would get a relief of $50,000 if household income is up to $100,000. Higher incomes would also be entitled to massive debt reductions, while only those households with earnings of over $250,000 would get no student debt reduction.

But as the editorial notes, spending over $640 billion to provide relief to graduates, who are defaulting on their student debts at a lower rate than before, comes at the expense of people who didn’t go to college at all and other priorities that would benefit the country better.

“What might be unfair is debt relief to the exclusion of other priorities with wider benefits, including to people who did not go to college at all,” the board wrote. “Ms. Warren proposes a wealth tax to cover the cost, the proceeds of which would then not be available for alternative, possibly more progressive uses.”

The tuition-free college, meanwhile, was lambasted by the newspaper as solely for the benefit of “the upper reaches” of income in the country as the children of rich parents will now be able to finish university debt-free even though their parents “are perfectly capable of helping defray the cost” of a for-profit school.

The board went on to praise Sen. Amy Klobuchar, another 2020 contender who’s viewed as a more moderate candidate, for saying during an event in New Hampshire that she can’t match Warren’s plan because it’s unrealistic.

“For us, though, policy priority is the essential concern. Student-loan defaults are concentrated among students who attended for-profit institutions, or who accumulated low loan balances but then dropped out and were stuck paying the money back out of lower-than-anticipated earnings,” the board wrote.

“Such issues are hardest for students and families of color, as Ms. Warren correctly emphasized. This calls for a targeted approach that relieves the worst financial stress of those least able to handle it, not a sweeping bailout for the middle class and above.”

[RBP]

You know you fucked up when WashPo disagrees.