Joe Biden Love Thread

[music_collector]

That's an interesting take on loans, forgiveness being regressive, I mean.

I wasn't eligible for loans when I got to university, then college. I was lucky enough to stay home. I worked a ton of hours (40-50 a week) from the day after the last exam, to the day before school started up again. I'm thankful I didn't get loans. I don't think I would have been responsible enough to know what to do with that much money, say $5000 a semester. I saw a lot of people in my dorm party away most of their money.

The loan system we have isn't bad. It would be much more palatable if schools didn't charge so much.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by elphenor

there's an interesting argument that forgiving student loans is somewhat regressive because you're already on average making a higher income if you finished college

And if your family is rich you don't have student loans. Not really that interesting.

[jwb]

But just having student loans probably on average puts you in a higher income bracket... having tons of student debt isn't a poor people problem it's a pretty middle class problem.

Though to me the best case for forgiving it is just that people have been completely raped on their tuition costs. But if we aren't going to are the cost only retroactively refund this one generation for their student loans while continuing to gouge the next generation I do see why that can come across as somewhat unfair.

[TheBig3]

Originally Posted by jwb

But just having student loans probably on average puts you in a higher income bracket... having tons of student debt isn't a poor people problem it's a pretty middle class problem.

Can you say more here? Why wouldn't low-income people have loans?

The solution to me is: Charge people a tuition. Then add incentives after the fact. For example...

1. If you live in this State for 5 years after graduation, we'll reduce your loan cost by 50%
2. If you get one of the following degrees*, we'll take an additional 25% off
3. If you work in Field X for 5 years, in [STATE] well take an additional 10% off

The theory being that you're paying SALT, you're supporting an industry in the State, and offering a discount for living in-state for 5 years later, rather than a discount for people who live in State before college, it's better for the economy.

[jwb]

To be clear I'm speaking in generalities, obviously some poor people have a lot of student debt but in general they are probably a good deal less likely to attend these expensive universities that get people in to so much student debt in the first place. In a way that's a potential sign of upward mobility.

[TheBig3]

I went to an in-state State School for undergrad and I still have something like $71k left in debt. I don't know how much of that is Grad School but I slimed my way out of paying for half of that.

Debt can be a good thing. It allows you to get something you can't afford. With Universities in the US, we're just paying for bloated administrative budgets and dumb crap like sprucing up the Rec Center so people on tours want to attend.

[jwb]

In state schools might be less expensive but that's still insanely expensive lol. I guess the point is that just being the type to get your bachelor's in general puts you in a higher income bracket on average. So I'm guessing forgiving those loans gives more back to the middle class than any other group. I'm sure there are studies on this that someone else can Google and pull up to prove me right.

[Frownland]

The coolest part about being middle class is when your DTI is so out of wack that you're functionally lower class but nobody looks at you like you're one of the poors.

[Frownland]

Supporting your children for an extra 10-30 years sounds like an upper class move to me.

The concept of the middle class is just a myth used to give the illusion of social mobility and undermine working class solidarity anyways.

[TheBig3]

I'm with Frown on this one.