[Locked due to politics] Student debt cancelation. Seems there are strong opinions against it from some.

[GP2017GT]

I support College Debt Forgiveness when all the colleges refund all the unhappy students that went to their pricey colleges. Makes no sense tax payers bail out universities just like free education I am all for it. The kindergarten thru college years should be the same right to all. Oh yeah the universities some of the most profitable institutions in the country will agree to all these ideas. The NCAA is the richest sport in the world cause no pay to the athletes and all the pay by the media and us to watch. Just incredible how we all think......end of rant.

So let me tell you. Colleges are charging the same or more for tuition, even when it's virtual. It's a scam. I'm going to College now. I would rather just have them be honest and have them say give (enter College name here) us X amount of dollars and we'll hand you whatever degree you like. There's no way College should be so expensive. My rant. Hopefully this doesn't head into some political rant BS later in these posts.

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[Briebee72]

So let me tell you. Colleges are charging the same or more for tuition, even when it's virtual. It's a scam. I'm going to College now. I would rather just have them be honest and have them say give (enter College name here) us X amount of dollars and we'll hand you whatever degree you like. There's no way College should be so expensive. My rant. Hopefully this doesn't head into some political rant BS later in these posts.

Yes online college is basically you teaching yourself and them doing nothing but pulling up some webpages it should cost a fraction of what it does. As for political yeah keep wishing. I specifically made this post about peopel and thier feelings and still some are going down the politics road.. cant stop it. you could start a topic on pickles and thers gonna be the ones who will turn it political.

 

[Briebee72]

I hope some of you are reading your own responses here. It exactly what IM saying. a bunch of I had to do it so should you. No one wishes better for the human race as a whole or betterment for their fellow man its all about jealousy and I had to do it so should you.

No one is saying anyone went in looking for free ride but in todays world when you went in looking for a bright future to only get out owing as much as a house payment each month for loans and there are no jobs especially now with all this corona crap. you got kids to feed and other bills. hell yeah man you need help.

couple people directly said im the one wanting a hand out? snow flake? People need to read. I already plainly said I been through it and I paid my loans I dont need anything. I Looking out for my fellow man. But i can see from most all the responses Im alone here. caring about others is a lost thing people now a days are just screw everyone else I guess. its sad.

To the ones saying screw hand outs and then say go get grants and scholarships ... who do you think pays for those? what's the difference? most grants and scholarships you dont pay back are... yup government backed. those saying join the military... again who do you think is paying for those? they already get a check and other government things for being in the military the college is a added government handout. again what's the difference. a government handed tuition is a government handed tuition no matter what its called.

Its pretty simple really. if you already done it and paid your loans then you are against it cause you had to do it. and yes that is selfish. but if those same people still had student loans outstanding then they would be all for it.

NO one was against that stimulus check that was getting one now were they.

If the government said tomorrow they were gonna pay 25K off every homeowners house how many of you same people with paid off school loans that think others with loans shouldn't get hand outs would be in line for that house check? Yeah every single one of ya. you are only against school loan payoffs cause you arent getting anything out of it and think no one else should either.

People amaze me.

 

[Briebee72]

Ill also add to this conversation... what about the piece of crap schools that get you in with big talk and hopes and basically lie just to get those tuitions.

Ill give you an example using my field. To be a basic rad tech you need an associates. Sounds great they tell you yeah we have job placements we help with resumes and all that. the job market is hoping we are getting calls al the time blah bah blah blah... man you get excited you as all ready to join the medical field and get going.

well years later and saddled with debt you find out after getting out of school that well the only places for these jobs are basically hospitals and the 3 hospitals in the area have the 3 or4 rad techs they need and no one is hiring. No tot mention the 7 colleges i the area all had programs pumping out 21 rad techs a year each dumping hundreds of people into a field that only has about 2 or 3 openings a year. These colleges know this but dont care they tell you crap to get that dollar and they dont car that they leave you hanging and saddled with massive debt with no options to pay it off.

This stuff happens in every field. Yea man these people need help, its not they are looking for hand out or went in expecting anything for free. I mean what else do they do? I was lucky to find work and also continue to a higher degree. but many people I graduated with got stuck and are still paying student loans off and were never able to find work because they were mislead about the job prospects after college.

 

[Mikthehun1]

There's a lot of issues with the education system in this country, and college tuition is just the tip of the iceberg. A lot of it has already been mentioned. This is my take on why current debt should have least some easement. It's a rigged system.

All through public school, kids are drilled with "gotta go to college" and "no future without college" or "only good careers are for college graduates". Then, at 18, you're told to pick your career path, saddle up to some enormous debt, and get in bed with a predatory lender.

To compound it, the whole higher education system has become more about the business than the actual learning. They pad the schedule with nonsense requirements, just to charge more tuition. The books/dorms/meals only add more to the cost, making you take out even more loans. It's all a vicious cycle, and the loan companies and colleges are only going to perpetuate it.

Anyone who got forced into that lie when they were a child isn't wholly at fault. It's the teachers and counselors and their parents that pushed them into it. The whole system is built on the nostalgic notion that college is actually worth a damn anymore. So yeah, cut them some slack.

 

[cowzrul]

Nobody truly knows how the student loan money is spent. I had classmates (1991-1994) who took student loans and invested in Microsoft. They made a very handsome returns. I knew a few guys who bought car parts, others furniture. I'm not proud to say but all my student loan money didn't go towards books and tuition or even necessities.

I was married with 2 kids and one on the way. I cashed in my VEAP (pre-GI Bill) so I had no assistance. Worked a full-time job and took heavy course load. It took me 10 years to pay it off and was one of the happiest days of my life getting that off my back. My comment above isn't related to my painful college debt it has to do with decisions people make with money. Don't fool yourself and think people don't blow that money on non-college related expenses. Why forgive that?

 

[Arknsawchuck]

This!! We (my wife and I) paid for our youngest college education. He chose a 5 year masters degree program. It was very intensive and demanding program. Between tuition, room and board, then rent, utilities, food, study abroad, etc., it cost us approximately $25K a year. His roommate and fellow program student, has $70K in student loans. No one forced those loans on his friend. He willingly took out those loans to pay for his schooling. He knew going in that his first years in the business he would only make about $40K/year. He absolutely should have to pay back those loans.

That being said, with what we pay in taxes, I am firm believer in free college for all. The last Federal budget included an additional $80 billion for defense. College for cost estimate is $60 billion.

We (this country) have the means to pay for it. Unfortunately, those that run this country choose to look at profit over possibility, dollars over dreams and themselves over others.

There is no such thing as "free". Somebody has to pay. And college isn't for everyone so why should it be free? Are the people that don't go going to get a refund of their taxes? The problem is everyone thinks college is a must and measurement of success. College prices have gotten way out of control and if our taxes start paying for it the cost will go even higher and the kids will just use college as a 4 year party plan. They chose to go they should pay. Anyway, my 2 cents.

 

[Arknsawchuck]

There's a lot of issues with the education system in this country, and college tuition is just the tip of the iceberg. A lot of it has already been mentioned. This is my take on why current debt should have least some easement. It's a rigged system.

All through public school, kids are drilled with "gotta go to college" and "no future without college" or "only good careers are for college graduates". Then, at 18, you're told to pick your career path, saddle up to some enormous debt, and get in bed with a predatory lender.

To compound it, the whole higher education system has become more about the business than the actual learning. They pad the schedule with nonsense requirements, just to charge more tuition. The books/dorms/meals only add more to the cost, making you take out even more loans. It's all a vicious cycle, and the loan companies and colleges are only going to perpetuate it.

Anyone who got forced into that lie when they were a child isn't wholly at fault. It's the teachers and counselors and their parents that pushed them into it. The whole system is built on the nostalgic notion that college is actually worth a damn anymore. So yeah, cut them some slack.

Exactly, the ONLY thing college guarantees you is years of debt.

 

[sotek2345]

I will chime in with my thoughts. My wife and I, for many reasons I won't go into - though we do both have masters, are still have 6 figures in student loans after making payments for almost 20 years. We have about another 20 years of payments to make. Thankfully we have done pretty well for ourselves and can now afford our payments without too much pain. We did have a lot of pain through our 20's and early 30's though when our income was lower and we had young children.

All that said, I would fully and wholeheartedly support student loan forgiveness even if it had an exclusion that directly and only applied to my family. Asking 17 to 18 year olds to make these decisions and sign up for these crazy levels of debt (that is exempted from bankrupcy) is just not appropriate. And to that the cost increases colleges and universities can add over the course of a degree and it is a very unfair system. I think we need loan forgiveness (means test it if you want to so that those not feeling pain are excluded). We also need to solve the root of the problem - I think a robust public education system, that is free to the student, would help drive down prices across the board, or leave exclusive private universities as the expensive ones - but that is OK.

Many folks in have posted about what colleges and universities provide from an employment perspective, and while that is part of the story, it isn't everything. There is a value in having a well rounded education (especially in history, writing, logic, philosophy, and politics). Don't was all want a better educated electorate? Don't we want people who know how to critically examine information to determine facts from opinion?

 

[SouthernCyclone]

Me, my wife and daughter all have student debt and I still think this is a bad idea.
This will be the first step in the Democratic Party wanting to offer free college for everyone.
Most Democrats are very delusional when it comes to all this great free policies that they want. Someone has to pay and hate to tell you Biden and all other celebrities, politicians and people making more then $400k a year are not going to be ok with paying 2x to 3x more taxes then everyone else. Sorry that was just a ploy to get you to vote them into office.
The real people who will have to end up paying for all this Free will be everyone. The people who gain from the majority of these policies are Welfare recipients. Must be nice to not have to work and get everything.
And before anyone says anything about me talking about people on welfare, the majority of my Aunt, Uncles and cousins on my dad side of the family around 20 are all on welfare in PA. Not because they can’t work or find a job, but because they are lazy. They know how to cheat the system for more free stuff. Learning how to cheat the system is passed down through the family.

 

[ford20]

NO you are not coming across as a dick, the whole point of my thread is to start conversation. But you buying equipment is your choice in the sense that no one promised you a better life by doing so, no one promised you a better job,

This is a what came first the chicken or the egg thing. They take on the debt cause they are told they can get a job. You don't know you can't get a job till you have the degree cause you can't apply with out the education. You go get the education then are told there is no jobs.

I thought that I put this in my original response but I never did. Sorry about that. You're contradicting yourself here. You can't say on the one hand that no one promised you a better life by opening your own business and then say that you were promised a better life by going to college. That isn't exactly the case. The whole story is that you supposedly need to go to college so you can get a good job and live a good life, but we all know that isn't entirely accurate. No one promised you a job at the end of college either. You enter the job market which is very competitive and it is up to you to make sure that you get the job that you envisioned while you were in college and often times there are multiple steps involved to get to the ultimate job that you were looking to receive. The college you went to is itself a springboard used to launch your way into the job market through alumni organizations and connections built and made during your time in college and also an example of the caliber of person that you are. For example, the reason that people go to Harvard is because that is where the best and the brightest go. As a result, people see Harvard University on your resume and they know that they will presumably have a hard-working, bright individual as a potential employee and your "struggle" as an individual will be greatly reduced because of it. As Thomas Sowell has said many times, the only benefit of a degree from Harvard is no longer having to be impressed with people who have a Harvard Degree. That is partly what college is.

Yes online college is basically you teaching yourself and them doing nothing but pulling up some webpages it should cost a fraction of what it does. As for political yeah keep wishing. I specifically made this post about peopel and thier feelings and still some are going down the politics road.. cant stop it. you could start a topic on pickles and thers gonna be the ones who will turn it political.

Not to make it seem as if I'm picking on you, because I don't intend to, you raise some decent points. I wouldn't entirely say that online classes are you teaching yourself. Having taken both in-person and online classes, I would say that for the online classes it is incumbent on you to make sure that you read the required material, but it is almost the same as in-person classes with lectures, notes and required reading outside of the classroom, but with more quizzes along the way. The professors are even more engaged in ensuring that you are learning the material properly as well, but there is a bit of a degree of making sure that you are learning and understanding the material and you having to speak up when you don't. So in that respect, I can see how you would say that it is you teaching yourself.

Also, of course this is going to get somewhat political. We are talking about and debating policy. So far you haven't laid out why this is a good policy outside of you are a selfish a-hole if you don't agree with me which is, in turn, you being an actual a-hole for assuming that those who aren't in favor of debt forgiveness are a-holes with zero evidence to substantiate the claim. As I said before, blanket debt forgiveness favors the top income earners and potential top income earners at the expense of the poor and bottom income earners. Why should they subsidize tax benefits for those who have the potential to make more money? Lets take for example your field of radiology. A radiology tech in NC makes on average between $52k-$69k a year according to salary.com and the average wage in NC is $26k according to zip recruiter. Why is it that those making $26k on average should be paying the tuition of those who have the potential to earn $30-$50k a year more than them? Student loan debt forgiveness doesn't address the problem. As you point out, there are colleges that will swindle you out of your money, there are people who rack up student loan debt while taking superfluous studies. How does student loan debt solve any of these issues?

To bring up your point about there being no jobs in radiology, it seems that we have forgotten what it is to be American in a sense. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that the field of radiology is expected to grow 7% over the next decade at a rate faster than the average for other occupations. You aren't promised that a job will be available to you where you grew up, we used to know and understand that we go where the jobs are, not pout that there are no jobs around us. Americans have historically moved where there was opportunity. My sister-in-law moved into the Raleigh-Durham area as a NP because the demand was high in that area. My cousin and her husband moved down to the same area for the same reasons as her husband is an ER nurse and she was a nurse as well.

 

[Strokerswild]

I'm not for it. At all. Call me a selfish a-hole all you want.

I worked my ass off and paid my way through college as I went. I never went anywhere for spring break (or any other break), worked part time while in school and full time during the summers. It took six years but I did it, and have nobody to thank but myself.

If anything, costs need to be brought in line. Or you do something other than college. If I had it all to do over again, I'm not sure I'd go the university route.

 

[Jbraun2828]

This country is going to shit because of a lack of accountability. Do what you say you’re going to do. There’s a huge deficit across all trades in this country so there’s plenty of good paying jobs out there without getting a 4 year education but all these young people look down on these careers. When you sign up for college you are making adult decisions and adults have to live with the consequences of their decisions. Maybe parents should be better at educating their kids on these decisions. All this free stuff makes me want to puke, not because I didn’t get it but because it doesn’t work. And I don’t believe in any kind of stimulus, because people buy dirt bikes with it instead of paying their bills. Fixing one problem while creating another is not really fixing anything. As was stated earlier, if you want free college...join the military and do this country some good.

 

[GP2017GT]

There's a lot of issues with the education system in this country, and college tuition is just the tip of the iceberg. A lot of it has already been mentioned. This is my take on why current debt should have least some easement. It's a rigged system.

All through public school, kids are drilled with "gotta go to college" and "no future without college" or "only good careers are for college graduates". Then, at 18, you're told to pick your career path, saddle up to some enormous debt, and get in bed with a predatory lender.

To compound it, the whole higher education system has become more about the business than the actual learning. They pad the schedule with nonsense requirements, just to charge more tuition. The books/dorms/meals only add more to the cost, making you take out even more loans. It's all a vicious cycle, and the loan companies and colleges are only going to perpetuate it.

Anyone who got forced into that lie when they were a child isn't wholly at fault. It's the teachers and counselors and their parents that pushed them into it. The whole system is built on the nostalgic notion that college is actually worth a damn anymore. So yeah, cut them some slack.

My wife has a Master Degree and I make more money than her. And her degree is in Psychology. She affects people's lives but doesn't get paid for it. Yet all these Colleges are crying broke because of Covid. Wow.

 

[samd1351]

There is no such thing as "free". Somebody has to pay. And college isn't for everyone so why should it be free? Are the people that don't go going to get a refund of their taxes? The problem is everyone thinks college is a must and measurement of success. College prices have gotten way out of control and if our taxes start paying for it the cost will go even higher and the kids will just use college as a 4 year party plan. They chose to go they should pay. Anyway, my 2 cents.

I agree, under the current system, if they choose to go, they should pay. And I agree that college isn't for everyone. But why should we deny someone an education because they can't pay?

How about we change the system? Instead of spending tax dollars on another $80B in the defense budget, that doesn't need it, use that to pay for college for all. It's money that we're already paying in taxes. My wife's niece went to college for virtually nothing, because her parents don't work (I don't want to get started on that). Who paid for that? Those of us that work and pay taxes. Does that seem right? Or fair? Or equal? I don't mind I really don't mind paying taxes, IF that money is being used wisely. It's currently not being used wisely.

Think of the possibilities. Students could go to school, and focus on school. They wouldn't have to worry about do i study, or do I work. ALL kids could attend college with the opportunity to learn about something that they're actually interested in. Just imagine if EVERY youth had the chance to become a doctor, an entrepreneur, a mechanic, or whatever. Instead, college is now priced so that the wealthy or those that are willing to take on 30 years of debt can attend. The few that can attend on thanks to the US tax payer, have the work/study battle so stacked against them, most drop out.

It's a damn shame the money that is wasted in this country instead of being used to actually help people.

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age (there's a pill for that right?!).

Just my 2 cents.

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