Student Loan Cancellation Debate

[ashkir]

Money shouldn't be a barrier to education, period. The United States education system is extraordinarily bad about wanting a real educated population. We forced schools to become capitalist. Thus, they are. Local college to me just announced a $13,000 price tuition increase. Not cheap.

We're the extraordinary ones who manage to hunt our degrees down by min-maxing transfers and considering costs. Not everyone does this. Most people go to brick schools. Most people learn better in non-CBE programs. We're lucky we have this route, and are able to do it cheaply.

Most aren't.

[ctcarl]

Money shouldn't be a barrier to education, period. The United States education system is extraordinarily bad about wanting a real educated population. We forced schools to become capitalist. Thus, they are. Local college to me just announced a $13,000 price tuition increase. Not cheap.

We're the extraordinary ones who manage to hunt our degrees down by min-maxing transfers and considering costs. Not everyone does this. Most people go to brick schools. Most people learn better in non-CBE programs. We're lucky we have this route, and are able to do it cheaply.

Most aren't.

Cancelling student debt today would help borrowers who have current student loan debt, but it’s a one-time solution. This measure would do absolutely nothing to address the core problem, the high cost of college, only subsidize it for current borrowers.  Since the problem remains, there will be more Americans who will face the same hardships and challenges as today's student loan borrowers, but they won’t have the benefit of student loan cancellation.

Rather than cancel student loans, Congress should look for solutions to lower the cost of higher education for all Americans.  Personally, I'd like to see a plan for free tuition for two-year and four-year public colleges and universities.

I think it's fair to say that I've met some extraordinary people here on DF, but there's nothing extraordinary about me or my learning abilities.  I was a paying student at Excelsior for many years and just couldn't figure out how to make an alternative degree program work for me.  One day I got a call from my new student advisor (I'd had many over the years, most of whom I'd never spoken to) who listened carefully to my story, asked if I knew about alternate credit providers, and made a few suggestions.  I stumbled across this site with a Google search, and subsequently member bjcheung77, a first-rate higher education consultant who, so far as I can tell, works for the satisfaction he gets by helping others with their educational goals.  In about nine months I had my degree.

I'm certainly not a member of some privileged group, and I'm not going to pretend that there are barriers to prevent anyone else from earning their degree exactly as I did.  In fact, during the COVID shutdown and with the help of member rachel83az, I guided a homebound relative with no previous college experience to earn an AAS from Pierpont.

[SteveFoerster]

I'd have a dollar for dollar refundable tax credit in place of Pell, and would kill federal loans altogether. Students who wanted to borrow could do so in the marketplace, creditworthiness, and dischargeable in bankruptcy normally, just like any other loan. Schools would have to drop tuition rates or die or be like Hillsdale and come up with alternative financing plans, and that would be a good thing.