Student Loan Borrowers Want Biden to Cancel Country’s Student Loans
Sanders Fabares noticed that his debt balance did not go down by much, despite his paying $1,000 a month. Wondering what “went wrong”, he looked into the larger student debt issue. He felt that something else needed to be done about the student debt situation. He joined a group of borrowers who have stopped making their student loan payments. They want Joe Biden to cancel the country’s outstanding student loans.
From CNBC:
Proponents also point out that it’s people of color bearing the brunt of the student loan crisis, and it’s also Black and Latino Americans who’ve suffered most from the coronavirus pandemic. An aide to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said canceling student debt would make the biggest strides toward narrowing the racial wealth gap since the civil rights movement.
Jenny Lezan of Naperville, Illinois, said she’s tired of people describing student loan borrowers — and those asking for forgiveness — as lazy or irresponsible.
“We’re hard-working individuals who just didn’t have the intergenerational wealth that allowed us to go to college without debt,” said Lezan, 35, who’s also joined the strike.
She was raised on Chicago’s West Side by a single mother who worked as a housekeeper. She never met her father. “My mother believed going to college would break the cycle of trauma and poverty we were in,” Lezan said.
The sticker shock involved with paying the debt back may have served an educational value. CNBC has the full story here.
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Sorry, not sorry about that student loan debt.
Can’t afford to pay a student and buy $8 soy lattes? Tough Shit.
The key to this issue is the fact that 80% of these loans went to the children of the top 5% income households and just over 60% of those loans went for grad school, not undergrad education.
So what is this really about? As always, it is about the Dumkopf class transferring wealth from the working class to the upper middle class.
As always, it’s a grift.
I agree. And the schools (colleges & universities) are simply mining the college debt lenders with higher tuition for those mostly useless degrees. Most of what is taught to undergrads is useless to most lines of work.
And it’s not just the tuition. Look at “student fees”. The state university nearest me charges about $500 in student fees for one three credit course. Athletic fee, Commons fee, Transportation fee,…..Just like buying a car, those little extras they don’t like to tell you about until you are already committed.
My ex was carrying nearly 75k in student debt at the time of our divorce. Had never made a single payment in 25 years, even through she was a GS-11 or 12 for much of that time. I got a call from a collector a week after the divorce was finalized. Gave the nice gentleman every bit of information I could, right down to the make and model of her car. Told him to call me anytime if I could be of assistance.
Don’t take 7 years to get a [fill-in-the-blank]-studies degree at $45K/year tuition…
I’m shocked all those gender studies degrees are not earning folks top dollar!
yeah, go figure…oh wait…they can’t do basic math!
Basic math, not to worry, the teachers in the state of Oregon say that is no longer a problem.
Paying off any loan, the interest is always paid off first, if you want to make a dent in the principle you have to pay extra, more of those racist math rules again.
‘rithmetic is RAAAYYYYCCIISSS!
Tough sh^t Cupcake. Get a haircut and get a real job
Y’all tired of the grifting Free Sh^t Army and their political enablers yet?
I made a damn good living for over 50 years with my BA in BS from the School of Hard Knocks.
These birdbrained nitwits apparently never heard of grants and scholarships, or getting the military to pay your way in exchange for joining up, or getting some time on AD to get the GI Bill.
There are scholarships going wanting for students to apply for them. No cost to the student involved at all.
No, they are stupid enough to get suckered into a lifetime of debt that they will never pay off, because they thought it was okay.
Do I feel sorry for them? Not just “no” but Hell, no.
Bingo. My kid is finishing up sophomore year. (the college is around $25k to $30k per year, all in)
Freshman year: Earned multiple scholarships,$1k debt, did not ask anyone for anything.
Sophomore: Paid the debt, contracted US Army, received scholarship, joined NG, makes money,still has scholarships and no debt.
Whats Coming: Basic Training, AIT THIS summer (gets paid), earns bonus (Future savings or starting out money).
Junior Year: No debt, still serves, goes to whatever .mil school, advance camp, or interneship is offered (not sure)
Senior year: No Debt, continues to serve, has knocked 3 years off 6 year contract, assuming not a career.
Finally: Commissions.
End game: No debt, all earned.
The kid paid for or earned his/her entire college carrier themself with out asking my wife or me for a dime, though we would gladly donate.
Lastly, he/she was on my Veteran benefits for freshman year. He/she wanted to save them for his/her sibling. Selfless Service.
Proud of this kid.
Some kids expect everything handed to them on a silver platter as they kick back and earn nothing.
As you said, not just no, but hell no.
Smart kid. Sounds like you did a good job raising his/her!
I had family constantly insisting I take a loan out to finish in the field I wanted with flippant, “It’s medical, you can pay off the 100k+ in no time. Or switch to law! That pays good!”
The schools are predatory and wildly out of whack at this point as far as I’m concerned and I’m glad I avoided that debt at all costs. While I agree, “Pay back your loans stupids” I also think schools need to be reigned in and punished for worthless degree peddling.
I remember listening to a young Army doctor, a captain, crying the blues about the more than $200,000 he and his lawyer wife owed and how the interest was eating them up.
I recall shaking my head about how anyone could smart enough to get through medical school and still be that stupid…
It’s a mixture of pressures most people don’t expect. If I wasn’t an obstinate jackass, I might have fallen into it just by family pressure. I held strong and stuck to grants and full time work. Then dropped it when I just couldn’t afford it anymore. I intend to finish, but that’s on my terms. Not the school’s.
Side effect of decades of telling people, “You have to have college or you’re worthless” while ignoring trade schools and better majors.
No one seems to bitch about schools charging X times as much as they did even recently, the poor educations, the million dollar athletic coaches… it’s all about the loans. And why it should all be free.
Scholarships.
My wife’s chapter of the DAR is offering a $2500 scholarship. Write a 500 word essay, get selected, get $2500!!!
Granted, you have to write about good citizenship and what that means to you. But $2500 for a 500 word essay.
AND the student can apply annually as long as they’re in college
The Free Shit Army needs their Free Shit that they think they are entitled to…
If I could work my way through college without borrowing, so can most others.
Life is hard. Life is harder if one is stupid.
“Someone else -owes- me a free ride in college!” – say slavers on the installment plan.
I had a student loan my last two years of college. I borrowed the massive sum of $1,500.00. I paid it off in 1974, after the first month I received a statement showing there was an interest charge, with some of the money I saved whilst in the Viet of the Nam. The loan was interest free for the years I was on AD. So, I had never made any payments. I might add, this was a bank loan, not tax dollars, as are all student loans now.
I was “allowed” to borrow $600 per semester from the VA.
Paid it all back with 6.5% interest. Thank you for my service.
The Dems have always been the party that supported the idea of some folks being required to give the output of their labor to others who were not working. They just called it something else 160 years ago.
A Degree in Intersectional Pet Rock Therapy ain’t cheap unless you go mail order like I did($39.95 plus S & H). I do see a future in Pet Rock therapy dealing with their fear of flight issues.
Hint, most pet rocks have boulder issues…
Before we cut that check to forgive the debt that they obligated themselves to, let’s look at the ledger and see how many Spring Break trips to Daytona that they took during their academic career.
I think trade/technical schools can be a better fit because of less tuition (hence no or small debt upon graduation), no needless courses compared to college, hands on training, less time to graduate so that you can into the workforce quickly with a decent paying job with the opportunity for advancement, etc..
There are also a lot of opportunities for scholarships and grants to pay for part of or close to most of the cost of tuition & books.
I personally know a number of younger people (including females) who went to tech school and now are making excellent money as a plumber, electrician or a machinist.
I also like Mike Rowe’s “Sweat Pledge”.
With y’all.
I didn’t come from “intergenerational wealth” either. Not sure that we were even quite in the middle class. Probably, but not by much.
Still, I graduated from a very good school. Paid my way, and it took a while. A single very small loan for tuition one semester – it seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t, so it was paid back pretty quickly by going to work instead of finishing school right away.
Just can’t get my head around the concept that all these precious young things actually expect the rest of us to do without stuff to give them stuff. Stupid way to view the world.
Had a marching scholarship for which I owed the Army 4 years. Parents cut me some slack an paid $134/quarter dorm room. I also worked for my food money. My son assumed I would pay. I did not, so he went out and got a marching scholarship from the Army. Came out debt free. Daughter paid 100% out of her pocket. Both good kids. Son is an O4 and daughter makes 90k/year plus.
To be fair:
Not all individuals have the same abilities, opportunities or physical characteristics to handle certain careers, like military. I get that. I also believe there should be a way forward, as there is now, and it can be expanded. I’m NOT for free college on the tax payer dime for all, but I am for some. Like now, if your field after college puts you in service to the betterment of our society i.e. police, firefighters, doctors, nurses and aides, soldiers, etc… etc…. percentages of debt should be forgiven for that service. No public money should be going to those who are unwilling to serve in ANY capacity and are only after self enrichment. Im even open to the reestablishment of something akin to the Civilian Conservation Corps to focus on our failing infrastructure, bridges, roads, forest management, electrical grid et.. as a way to forgive student debt. Just my opinion.
Agree. Something like the CCC would be invaluable to thinks like infrastructure and wild land management. Shit, even the Peace Corps or Merchant Marine.
Do four years serving, get some education benefits.
Some progressive/liberal social justice warrior howler monkey (ht Nicki) would declare it to be “indentured servitude to support the institutional racism of the white privileged misogynistic cisgendered elite ruling class” or some similar shite.
One could always do a volunteer internship at All-Points Logistics.
They would learn the “tools” of the trade.
And when they finish, you release them in Europe and Russia as operatives.
GLG-20’s (the decoys) in “Spies Like Us”.
The Russians would know what the fuck to do with them. The levels of bullshit they would have to sift through would blow their collective minds.
1. I am not your daddy.
2. No one has ever considered to pay any of my debts.
3. If you have finally figured out that your useless degree in LBTGQ+ studies entitles you to an exciting career as a Starbucks Barista….It’s not my problem.
4. White kid that grew up on welfare, joined the Marines at 17, and after attaining the rank of Sergeant and my EAS, I then spent 25 years doing 8-16 hour tours in numerous hell hole state prisons. Always outnumbered by murderers, rapists, and other mutants, my brothers and I had one motto, if I go down, drag what’s left of me out the front gate. Having survived, as well as rising to the highest uniformed rank in my Department (Chief), I now collect a hefty $76K a year pension. No college required.
5. The moral of my story is that nobody owes you shit, get out there and take it. It’s not easy, it sucks, it’s dangerous, but the rewards are there. Too many 20 somethings and 30 year old latte sipping soy boys want to suckle mommy’s nipple, lay on the couch and play X-Box all day rather than earning their own keep.
6. Get off my lawn, LOL
The ones with the fancy gender, philosophy, art, dance etc degrees are getting their power disconnected by the guy who took a lineman’s apprenticeship. Those guys make bank.
Yep…Journeyman Line Crews, straight time (40 hour week) $38-52 per hour. Time and 1/2 for anything over 40 up 49 hour week. Usually anything over 49 hours in a week it kicks to double time. You can also figure in a night or weekend/holiday differential, call out for after hours/emergencies. The list goes on. Up to six weeks a year paid vacation, 8 floating personal days/optional holidays. 6-8 paid holidays. Decent health care and either a pension or 401K or both.
Every skilled trade out there is SCREAMING for qualified help. Car dealerships, HVAC, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, nursing, ect, many will not only pay for the school, but will pay you a stipend while you’re attending.
One thing that has not been talked about is the fact, many of these “student loans” were not just for school expenses, but for living expenses. Used as an open ended, unlimited line of credit debit card.
Screw these whinny ass crybabies. I rank this BS right up there with the whole reparations thing. I don’t owe you sh^t!
I was PVT.
Took the College Kicker.
Made rank.
Got Popped.
Took Trumps PH kicker.
Finishing at a higher level of education.
Earned it. They hate me. Not diverse enough even though I check several blocks.
Really?
No loans; just my ass.
Making it work.
Really?
Get the 10K. But the rest….
Go fuck yourself.
You fight; college relief.
MY son and I both got our degrees on the G.I. Bill. If Congress caves in on this crap, it will be a kick in the face to everyone who served and EARNED some help from Uncle. Somebody tell these pussies to do some service first.
I am confused at the push towards college. Not every career field benefits from higher education, not every higher education benefits anybody outside academia.
The skyrocketing cost of tuition is driven by the federal creation of a bubble. If the feds staying in their lane and stopped tipping the scale by guaranteeing these bogus,semi predatory loans, Universities wouldn’t be able to raise cost every year.
I have been telling my children since they were old enough to ignore me that having a skilled trade is unemployment insurance. I have been a professional mechanic for over 30 years, keep a tool box and a current skill set, and do not have the ability to telework, but also can not be outsourced to an overseas call center.
The people with degrees who produce nothing, but have a sheepskin are the first to be cut in a downturn, even in a merger the “worker bees” are usually retained because we keep the wheels turning.
Universities have lobbyists. They push for more government handouts and more non-dischargeable loans so they can increase their costs and collect all that cash.
It is incestuous and obscene.
All those grievance monger asst. deans’ salaries have to be funded from some source.
I have to admit I am torn about all of this.
I took out many student loans and have been paying them for over 20 years. Another 10 years to go.
I fell on hard times years back and they heaped on penalties and interest as a result of my not being able to pay the FULL payment each month, but I made partial payments.
So, over the years I have calculated that I paid the original amount that I borrowed almost 1.25 times over. So, it is a matter of paying the interest.
I swear, I was not paying attention at first but after steady payments over the course of 10 years, I only dented the amount owed by 3 thousand dollars. The rest was interest and penalties.
I took on the loan, sure. I don’t mean to sound like a snowflake as far as my responsibilities, but when you can’t pay and don’t fall into a category of deferment, they heap on charges, penalties and F()#-U costs.
So, I can’t say I wouldn’t take some relief if offered. I hope that doesn’t make me a snowflake. On one hand, I’m not rooting for relief. They probably shouldn’t do it by EO, but I’m not going to refuse it.
I hate to be labeled a snowflake by dodging my debts, but as I said I paid back what I owed in principle… the question that remains for me is the interest that has accumulated and increased the debt by over 200%. In an odd way, taxpayers may be footing the bill for my interest should they do an EO. They may be better off doing away with predatory interest on these loans.
My suspicion is there will be a tiny bit of relief such as 10K, but not the 50K they are floating around.
There it is – full disclosure.
A thought I had back when I was struggling and not getting sympathy from the lender on my payments, is the following:
I had time and not money. I would have GLADLY gone in somewhere, sign in, and work off hours in some federal facility. i.e. library, federal institution, etc. Where there was ZERO money exchanges, but I could get credit hours that went back to the Dept of Education as funny money and knocked off some of my payments/debt.
Perhaps that is the answer? The equivalent of community/federal service for those who would rather work for credit hours vs. make payments if they don’t have the ability to do so.
I ended up using my degree, but not at first other than the time in college taught me life skills such as writing, meeting deadlines, communicating well, planning, etc. Years later the degree came into play so I’m not sorry for it.
Depending on your field, there may be an opportunity for paydown by working someplace unpleasant.
An acquaintance with an advanced nursing degree was offered a very generous payoff in exchange for four years of work in rural Alaska.
There are others.
Why not just get a civilian job–part-time during school, full-time summers? Why the insistence on government involvement?
During college, I was in the military reserves and held a job during the summers.
Probably kept a roof over my head and kept me fed.
timactual wrote: “Why the insistence on government involvement?”
The student loans are backed by the Dept of Education, which is why banks give them out with almost no questions other than you are enrolled in an accredited university. I would venture to guess that the Dept of Education is also behind getting the loans paid and therefore setting up the parameters to do so.
The debt is mine. I’m just saying that it will be tough to say no if they offer some kind of relief. At this point, I’m certainly not advocating for it due to the ethics it stirs up. If they do it, they should also do something equitable to those that paid them back.
Forgot to add… I was on the VEAP program. The “Sucky” G.I. Bill after the old G.I. Bill ended and the ones after it were made better.
I don’t know what “old” GI bill you refer to. My benefits back in the early ’70s were $180/month. U. of Fla. was on the quarter system so I got three checks. One paid for my full-time tuition, the second paid for books & dorm. The third was for food, entertainment (mostly beer), transportation, and everything else for three months. Not particularly great. Fortunately for me I drank cheap beer back then.
The “old” G.I. Bill I’m referring to was called the Montgomery G.I. Bill which ended on December 31, 1976. It was replaced by the VEAP G.I. Bill, which required military members to contribute to.
The Montgomery G.I. Bill did not require payments/contributions and paid out $376/month if memory serves me back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It could have paid out less in prior years.
They really just had ONE G.I. Bill before they saw the need to change it since it was a lot of money. That’s when the idea of VEAP – a contributory G.I. Bill came along. It was implemented on January 1, 1977.
The VEAP paid out 36 payments (4 yrs x 9 months/year of college) from a maximum account of $8100, so $225/month. Out of the $8100, assuming the service member paid the maximum, paid $1 into it and was matched at $2 by the government. So, the servicemember paid $2700 and the government paid $5400 and it was dispersed in 36 $225 increments.
Later, other G.I. Bills were a little more generous but those of us on the VEAP got the suckiest of deals and in my case had to supplement by part time employment and student loans.
Perhaps as an alternative to full loan forgiveness, maybe there should be forgiveness of penalties and interest for those making partial payments, plus, expanded mechanisms to work off large balances with public service.
The same can be said for a mortgage (or a car loan or any other personal loan). You spend the first several years paying the interest. You don’t start making headway on the principle until like year five and really don’t until year 15.
I demand mortgage forgiveness. It’s not fair I didn’t have the intergenerational wealth that allowed us to go purchase a home without debt.
Once upon a time a college degree was a relatively rare thing. In the recent past, it’s like – so what? Get to the back of the line, kid. It’s tough out there.
I signed up.
Took the GI Bill and the “Kicker”.
Went to war. Left service with an Honorable Discharge.
Finished school.
Uncle Sam upheld his end of the bargain, I upheld mine.
Wish I had known about that “white privilege” thing back when I was paying my own way through school.
One thing I have learned in my multiple college matriculations—you don’t need a four year degree to make good money. Two years is plenty if you take something somebody actually wants. Network Engineer, average starting salary $68,000. Various medical technician jobs, including medical equipment repair. check your local community college or the internet. CISCO, the network people, has their own on-line courses I think.
Another thing I learned over the years is that if you don’t get a degree that someone is willing to pay for, you are better off working for a plumbing, electrical, HVAC contractor or somewhere else with apprenticeship opportunities. My neighbor is a self-employed carpenter and he has done right well.
Miz Poe’s physically handicapped brother, now 76 and in a nursing home on Medicaid, still has more than $100,000 in outstanding student loans and penalties incurred in the process of acquiring five, count ’em, five degrees in the field of social work which he never put to use because he was unrealistic about his employment skills, believing that because of his undeniably considerable intellect he could start out at management level despite his inability to communicate due to a severe speech defect. We all know where that kind of attitude gets you.
There is no question that the schools he attended encouraged him to take out the “easy-to-get” loans and to keep on piling up the useless degrees, year after year. He never paid back a penny and hid the existence of the loans from the family, all of whom thought he was getting scholarships.
It was only after his parents died and we assumed responsibility for overseeing his care that we discovered what he’d been hiding for years. And it was only a couple of years ago, after he’d been in the nursing home for a while, that Miz Poe was able to convince the collection agency that there was no way they were going to collect.
Her niece, an equally bright individual but one plagued with drug addiction also amassed tens of thousands of dollars in student loans that also went unpaid when she OD’d at age 41 after making no payments until the collection agency had her wages garnisheed just a short time before she died: her wages as a New Mexico state drug counselor. Yup, a classic case of the government hiring the blind to lead the blind.
And that’s from just one middle-class family to give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem.
It takes government to create such a screwed up situation.
No one would make such loans without government removal or transfer of risk.
End this insane loan system altogether.