Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I voted: Democrat: all student debt. I have a qualification to make though. I would make it dischargeable in bankruptcy five or seven years after first payments become due. One can't obviously allow people to bankrupt out of the debts on graduation day since few have assets or for that matter credit at that point. But at some point people need to go on with their lives.
I voted Democrat and chose none, making poor choices is on the family/person not the institution and there are plenty of choices. I have a nephew (in his 30's now) that went to U Penn one of the best business schools in the world and got a Liberal Arts Degree. He was paying $40k a year when he could have gotten the same general degree at a state school for about $10k a year, why should he be excused from his debt? My own kids school choices were based on their efforts which got significant scholarship monies and what they could afford, although both graduated with debt they were able to pay it off within a reasonable period of time largely because they came out with marketable skills. Look at the housing collapse how many walked away because they lived to their max credit limit, brought at the top end of the market and never saved anything are they not largely at fault for their own problems? Unlike the family that bought within their means and was able to weather the market downturns and what followed.
I’d like to see it minimized, not fully canceled. There is some personal responsibility at play, but costs are way out of hand. And I’m way, way, way past paying mine off, and my own children will not need to take out loans as they have significant trusts set up to pay for their educations. I had significant academic scholarships in undergrad, but professional school cost me about 200K, even 20 years ago. We had high paying jobs right away and sacrificed and paid them off within 3 years...key being we made 3x what we owed though, very few careers work out that way.
Oh no! You’ve been right on every topic up until now. I knew your perfect record wouldn’t last forever!
There are enough work-arounds to help young adults deal with their student loans - from forbearance, to income-ratio payments, to loan forgiveness for certain jobs. It would be wrong to tell students that you can borrow as much as you want (including enough for semesters abroad and nice spring jaunts to Cancun) because you’ll only have to make payments until you’re 26, after which the car mechanic, and assistant manager at JC Penney’s, and the secretary at the law office, etc., will all pitch in to pay off the remainder, while you move up the ladder as an accountant, architect, engineer, whatever, making double what they earn.
College graduation is usually at age 22 or so, meaning the ability to discharge would not occur till 29 or 30. At that point people may have accrued assets, gained a credit rating etc. My experience as a bankruptcy lawyer is that by that age most people don't want a stain on their credit which lasts ten years. I was married at 34, and that is the age when many people marry or have semi-permanent employment. Bankruptcy at 22 or 26 is a lot more disruptive.
I have one 40 year old couple I am advising to file, but they owe $3,000,000 on a difficult childbirth. I was unsuccessful in forcing the insurer to pay. Generally though I don't advise personal bankruptcy age ages much over 25 or under the 60's. This, of course, is not legal advice and people should consult their attorneys about their situation.
I’d like to see it minimized, not fully canceled. There is some personal responsibility at play, but costs are way out of hand. And I’m way, way, way past paying mine off. I had significant academic scholarships in undergrad though.
Costs are way out of hand in large part because top-heavy institutions have been able to reliably count on Uncle Sam guaranteeing perpetual loans in free-for-all fashion regardless of education quality, expected RoI, or merit-based worthiness on the student end. Literally one of the largest scams ever perpetrated upon the citizenry; and the institutions, the government, and corporations of all sizes are complicit in the debt-fueled barrier-to-entry Ponzi scheme. Half of people don't complete their degree, half of those who do actually procure a job in their chosen field of study, the degrees are worth less and cost more, and many of these folks are everything from socially problematic to borderline incompetent outside of STEM-oriented fields. Add to that the invisible Scarlet letters looming over the heads of those with experience but no overpriced piece of paper and those who would've otherwise been more suited to skilled vocations if it weren't for pervasive academic skullduggery, and it's no wonder why reasonable people spanning the political aisle tend to observe the ass-backwardsness of it all in the comforts of either personal privacy or online anonymity.
Cancelling the student debt isn't a gift to current, recent, or future students; it's unknowingly allowing the folks who've created this mess in the first place to garner another lube-less thrust into the behinds of a collective citizenry who deserves better than being used as a penile pincushion by the so-called decision makers who fancy themselves your moral and intellectual betters.
Costs are way out of hand in large part because top-heavy institutions have been able to reliably count on Uncle Sam guaranteeing perpetual loans in free-for-all fashion regardless of education quality, expected RoI, or merit-based worthiness on the student end. Literally one of the largest scams ever perpetrated upon the citizenry; and the institutions, the government, and corporations of all sizes are complicit in the debt-fueled barrier-to-entry Ponzi scheme. Half of people don't complete their degree, half of those who do actually procure a job in their chosen field of study, the degrees are worth less and cost more, and many of these folks are everything from socially problematic to borderline incompetent outside of STEM-oriented fields. Add to that the invisible Scarlet letters looming over the heads of those with experience but no overpriced piece of paper and those who would've otherwise been more suited to skilled vocations if it weren't for pervasive academic skullduggery, and it's no wonder why reasonable people spanning the political aisle tend to observe the ass-backwardsness of it all in the comforts of either personal privacy or online anonymity.
Cancelling the student debt isn't a gift to current, recent, or future students; it's unknowingly allowing the folks who've created this mess in the first place to garner another lube-less thrust into the behinds of a collective citizenry who deserves better than being used as a penile pincushion by the so-called decision makers who fancy themselves your moral and intellectual betters.
Did you just come up with this paragraph?
If so, that's AWESOME!!! That's prose for speech writing.
But not all loans are the same, and you're trying to present a student loan is the equivalent of a home mortgage.
It's not. The two are as different as day and night. If you were to put your home up for sale today, anyone could buy it, and you put the difference between what you still owe and what you received in your pocket.
A student loan is worth nothing at all to anyone other than the student and the loan originator. You can't buy someone else's college degree because it didn't educate you.
So it's unfair to try to act as if a student loan is identical to a mortgage, It isn't and never was.
It is one of very few large loans that has no collateral built into it, but a student loan can easily cost as much as a modest house (or more), and can put the student into deeper debt than a mortgage does.
Like I said- student loans should be done once the principal is paid, with enough interest attending ached to cover the costs of the loan. They should not be used as a source of revenue by the college, or treated as if they are a mortgage by a bank.
If we don't forgive this mountain of debt, all it will do is drag us all down like heavy rocks in our pockets.
The founding fathers had the right idea in thinking an education should be free. Basic education for all is what made the United States what it is today.
Their sons realized that this new nation also needed another new level of education if we were ever to break free of Europe's bonds.
So our state colleges came. While never intended to be free for all, they were to be affordable, and available for the common man.
Republicans:
88% no debt should be cancelled
5% up to $20,000 should be cancelled
1% up to $75,000 should be cancelled
6% all student debt should be cancelled
Democrats:
48.83% no debt should be cancelled
13.95% up to $20,000 should be cancelled
13.95% up to $75,000 should be cancelled
23.26% all student debt should be cancelled
Hardly the consensus the new media wants to portray.
I'm in the 5% R's up to $20K, just because that was closest to my opinion. I wouldn't forgive a cent of private college tuition or ANY for post-grad debt. I'm really only interested in considering those "non-traditional" borrowers (ie, low-mod income) sucked into the for-profit places that overpromised careers or shuttered leaving them with nothing but the debt.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
