Current Events > US should forgive undergrad student loans.

(+) Yeah! (+)

A real proposal.

Lock the interest at 0%, or no greater than inflation. Also ditch the bankruptcy exclusion.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Lock the interest at 0%, or no greater than inflation. Also ditch the bankruptcy exclusion.

Yes, this is a much fairer way.

No one would give out loans if the interest was zero, it would have to be done strictly by the government.

Not even federally backed loans would be a thing.

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Student loans are part of their education.

They learn how to pay back a debt or they will be fucked for life.

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Alteres posted...

No one would give out loans if the interest was zero, it would have to be done strictly by the government.

It's essentially been that way since 1992 or 93 anyway.

JustMyOpinion posted...

We should work on making the cost of college less unreasonable.

(forbes warning)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2017/02/22/how-unlimited-student-loans-drive-up-tuition/

JustMyOpinion posted...

We should work on making the cost of college less unreasonable. This would just treat the symptom rather than the disease.

Which is why cancelling undergraduate loans along with lessening tuition costs for AA degrees is the fairer route. Logic being that if you have to have a Bachelor's or Graduate, chances are your occupational career and background will likely pay off the costs just the same as bailout for a less privileged individual.

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If you wanted to make state colleges a public option, with little or no cost to the students, I can get behind that.

But if you've already taken out debts to pay for college, you should be obligated to pay them back.

Considering the current special circumstance, the most I could really support is deferring the loan payments and temporarily suspending interest rates.

Forgiving the undergrad debt would help the covid economic stimulus for the long term. At the very least, they could make payments due to be a very small amount, so the loans will be paid back in part while easing the financial burden of debtors. After all, a lot of people got BA/BS degrees and can't find shit for jobs now, certainly not making enough that would be commensurate to paying back the loan for the degree.

i don't understand enough about the larger economic ramifications of such a sweeping enactment so i'm not smart enough to vote yes on this

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Here's a dumb idea: retroactively undo interest.

The Trent posted...

i don't understand enough about the larger economic ramifications of such a sweeping enactment so i'm not smart enough to vote yes on this

It would be about the same as the Reagan Amnesty in 1986. Slapping a band-aid on the crisis without taking definitive steps to prevent it from happening again a few years later, or simply "forgetting" to follow through on those steps.