I think two things make up the core of the student loan problem.
Kids in high school are surrounded by rhetoric from every adult they might trust near-constantly insinuating that if you don’t go to college you’ll never make anything of yourself (this has been better recently, with more and more high school graduates being made abundantly aware of non-college options available to them)
Student loans are designed to spiral into lifelong debt. This one is a bit more anecdotal for me but a good few of my high school friends have paid back well beyond the initial sum of their student loans, yet their remaining balance is greater than they started.
Now I’m not saying this is what you’re doing, but those who frame the issue as purely one of personal responsibility (i.e. “you took out a loan pay it back”) are at best being unhelpfully reductive and at worst gaslighting.
Set aside, just for a moment, the abstract moral aspect of this position, and consider the purely utilitarian side. If such a huge portion of an entire generation’s earnings are being funneled up to banks that talked them into a maybe-not-so-necessary college education when they were 17, they’re not exactly enabled to spend money in local commerce. Money spent in local commerce is pretty good if you want an economy to thrive, and if you ask me, student debt forgiveness would substantially contribute to that. If you disagree then you disagree, but framing that disagreement as a moral superiority is immature.
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I think two things make up the core of the student loan problem.
Kids in high school are surrounded by rhetoric from every adult they might trust near-constantly insinuating that if you don’t go to college you’ll never make anything of yourself (this has been better recently, with more and more high school graduates being made abundantly aware of non-college options available to them)
Student loans are designed to spiral into lifelong debt. This one is a bit more anecdotal for me but a good few of my high school friends have paid back well beyond the initial sum of their student loans, yet their remaining balance is greater than they started.
Now I’m not saying this is what you’re doing, but those who frame the issue as purely one of personal responsibility (i.e. “you took out a loan pay it back”) are at best being unhelpfully reductive and at worst gaslighting.
Set aside, just for a moment, the abstract moral aspect of this position, and consider the purely utilitarian side. If such a huge portion of an entire generation’s earnings are being funneled up to banks that talked them into a maybe-not-so-necessary college education when they were 17, they’re not exactly enabled to spend money in local commerce. Money spent in local commerce is pretty good if you want an economy to thrive, and if you ask me, student debt forgiveness would substantially contribute to that. If you disagree then you disagree, but framing that disagreement as a moral superiority is immature.
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