Student Loan Forgiveness Rant
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
There wasn't an clause way back when you signed up for the student loans that if you paid for them for 20 years the debt would be forgiven. There certainly wasn't a clause at the time saying that if you went and worked for the Government a portion of the loans would be paid back.
You're essentially making $63000 back over the term of this "gift". That's a lot of money.
That isn't given equally.
There isn't a clause in your loans that you will get a job after at all, but you don't get upset if people find jobs after going to school, right?
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@scottalanmiller said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@penguinwrangler said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
I as someone who's paid every penny of my student loans haven't received a government benefit from paying my bill.
Why should you get a benefit for working for a government agency receive a benefit that isn't / wasn't available to me?
@dustinb3403 It could be available to you. You are not barred from working for a non-profit or the government. How is it any different than a company saying if you work for 'x' amount of years we will pay off your student loans or a company saying we will pay for you to go back to school?
Because the tax payers are the people are paying off your bad choices.
I chose to bust my ass and get a good paying job so I could pay my debts, because I don't want to be in debt forever.
You / me / and anyone else with college loans agreed to the terms on the loan. You can't go and change them after you get dealt a shit hand at life.
What he's asking is, if you got a job today that agreed to go back and pay for your schooling that you already paid for, how would that be different? And they are free to do so.
But no one would. Absolutely no business would say "oh hey look you have 200K in paid-off student debt, let's give you that $200K if you work for us for 7 years".
That doesn't happen. You signed up for that debt, it's your job to pay it off by getting the job that pays you enough.
That no one would is a totally different discussion.
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
But no one would. Absolutely no business would say "oh hey look you have 200K in paid-off student debt, let's give you that $200K if you work for us for 7 years".
But nothing is stopping them from saying this...
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@scottalanmiller said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
There wasn't an clause way back when you signed up for the student loans that if you paid for them for 20 years the debt would be forgiven. There certainly wasn't a clause at the time saying that if you went and worked for the Government a portion of the loans would be paid back.
You're essentially making $63000 back over the term of this "gift". That's a lot of money.
That isn't given equally.
There isn't a clause in your loans that you will get a job after at all, but you don't get upset if people find jobs after going to school, right?
No because that it their responsibility. Get a job and pay your debts.
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A better way to look at this is I'm in the camp of "carry your own weight".
Don't expect others to pick you up after you.
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@dashrender said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
What torqued my wife and I off was that a new program was put in place for teachers to have gov't funded loans forgiven, but she didn't qualify because she was before the start date they picked. But of course all the teachers since then.... HUGE reduction in student loan fees.
All of that said - I'm with Dustin in that the government shouldn't be using public money to put people through college. The government, often requiring college degrees, just furthers a system of waste and control.
I generally am a conservative-leaning person, but I have thought a decent amount about this issue and if the right solution was proposed, I believe I could get behind using public money to subsidize or pay for college education. The reason being is that from a gov't standpoint, this could be viewed as an investment. You aren't handing out a benefit that gives you zero return like many other gov't programs. In this scenario, you would be giving someone an opportunity to increase their job opportunities (less unemployment) and make higher wages which would then mean higher tax revenue for the gov't.
For instance, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for a HS graduate is roughly $36,000. An Associate's Degree earns a median of $42,500, and a Bachelor's earns a median of $60,000.
The average cost of public university tuition and fees per year currently is around $10,000. So it costs $40,000 - $50,000, on average, for a Bachelor's Degree at a 4-year public, in-state university. Median earnings tell us though that those individuals with the 4 year degree are earning almost double the wages in comparison. If we stretch this out across a 40 year working career, that's an additional $960,000 that an individual is earning, spending, investing, and paying taxes on. If an individual paid even 10% in taxes through those 40 years, the gov't has earned an additional $96k based on that initial $40-50k investment.
Now this obviously isn't perfect math and there are many other variables. It makes no sense to pay $40k+ in some tuition for some bogus degree that will get someone nowhere. Maybe they could start a program like this from STEM related fields or fields that meet a certain job demand criteria.
Ultimately this wouldn't feel like a handout decision to me, but rather a business decision the gov't would be making to bring in more revenue long term.
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That isnt how it works from @PenguinWrangler description.
The forgiveness will be taxed as income, probably at the rate bonuses/lottery income, much higher than regular income unless he is making tons of money(he isnt if working for feds).
He is essentially an indentured servant to the federal government for the next decade.Also, people saying the government shouldnt be spending money on education, LOL.
It should be the highest expenditure of the federal government and local governments.
It should dwarf the War Department's budget. -
@momurda said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
That isnt how it works from @PenguinWrangler description.
The forgiveness will be taxed as income, probably at the rate bonuses/lottery income, much higher than regular income unless he is making tons of money(he isnt if working for feds).
He is essentially an indentured servant to the federal government for the next decade.Again, this is still not a public issue.
His failure to be able to find a decent paying position has no bearing the loans he agreed to at the start of college. That is his debt.
Even if he is being taxed on this money at some insane rate, he's still being released from $63,000 of debt.
If he went to public college those loans may have been total $30,000 for a 2 year degree, which is way the hell cheaper.
Not my problem to pay for his or anyone's choice of going to a private college and not finding that sweet sweet money bags job to pay off the debt that they agreed too.
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@momurda said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
That isnt how it works from @PenguinWrangler description.
The forgiveness will be taxed as income, probably at the rate bonuses/lottery income, much higher than regular income unless he is making tons of money(he isnt if working for feds).
He is essentially an indentured servant to the federal government for the next decade.Also, people saying the government shouldnt be spending money on education, LOL.
It should be the highest expenditure of the federal government and local governments.
It should dwarf the War Department's budget.You don't solve problems by just throwing money at them. We've been trying that with education and it isn't working. I agree that education should be a priority, but that doesn't always equate to dollars spent. The gov't is (seemingly) highly inefficient with the way they currently spend our dollars.
And no, education shouldn't be higher than our defense budget. I wish they could be closer (due to less demand of need for defense) but unfortunately we live in a messed up world with some crazy people. Our government's first and most important responsibility is the protection of its citizens.
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@momurda said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
That isnt how it works from @PenguinWrangler description.
The forgiveness will be taxed as income, probably at the rate bonuses/lottery income, much higher than regular income unless he is making tons of money(he isnt if working for feds).
He is essentially an indentured servant to the federal government for the next decade.Also, people saying the government shouldnt be spending money on education, LOL.
It should be the highest expenditure of the federal government and local governments.
It should dwarf the War Department's budget.Spending on education is fine, spending to remove debt that someone agreed to is that individual persons responsibility. Not the public's responsibility.
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@zachary715 The education budget is a joke.
The way schoools are funded by property tax is a joke.
You want to fix this country.
Reduce the War department budget by 90%, increase the education department budget by 400%. -
@momurda no it is not taxed as income. https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service/questions
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@momurda said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@zachary715 The education budget is a joke.
The way schoools are funded by property tax is a joke.
You want to fix this country.
Reduce the War department budget by 90%, increase the education department budget by 400%.I'm not saying schools couldn't use more money. I'm sure they absolutely could. I'm just saying that throwing dollars at the problem isn't always the easy fix. If "education" were a business, they'd be looking at how to get smarter and do things differently than they have been to get better results. Our schools/education system needs to get more efficient and more modern.
But I still disagree with you on defense spending. That's another area that REALLY needs some efficiency is how dollars are spent, but reducing it by 90% is likely unrealistic and careless.
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I agree higher education will and does better the community for everyone. I don't agree in handouts to remove someone's responsibility to something they agreed too.
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@scottalanmiller said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
I'm the opposite, the gov't should put everyone through college. It's the picking and choosing that is the problem.
This is something that is often overlooked. People often site Finland as having free college - and they do - but they don't tell the whole story. Finland's department of education realized that if any more than 69% of the population goes to college, they won't have enough blue collar workers, so they have national entrance exams. If you don't do well there, you don't go to college.
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@penguinwrangler said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@momurda no it is not taxed as income. https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service/questions
Even worse! Meaning they are just giving you an extra $63K over the term. Go find a job that pays that extra money per year and pay your debts.
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The other thing about the Finnish system is the taxes it takes to pay for that. The two things that I think Americans would have a hard time with is the 100% automobile tax and the tax brackets that increase exponentially. So cars cost twice as much. You can't earn more to pay for it since it gets to the point where if you work more hours, you get taxes so much higher you end up with less in your pocket.
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@mike-davis said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@scottalanmiller said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
I'm the opposite, the gov't should put everyone through college. It's the picking and choosing that is the problem.
This is something that is often overlooked. People often site Finland as having free college - and they do - but they don't tell the whole story. Finland's department of education realized that if any more than 69% of the population goes to college, they won't have enough blue collar workers, so they have national entrance exams. If you don't do well there, you don't go to college.
But you also have to realize that not everyone in a "college for everyone" approach would go, even if offered. You'd also have grade maintenance programs to ensure that the people attending public funded college are actually going to be valued individuals in the future.
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
Why / when did this become an acceptable practice?
Discharging of debts as a government mandated process? 1787 when the constitution mandated Congress to write uniform bankruptcy laws. Reorganization of unpayable debts? (Chpt 11) 1930's.
The limitations on discharging of education loans in bankruptcy or through the courts or law is actually a relatively new thing.
@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
Sorry people, pay your debts! Don't be one of the millions of assholes who say "not my problem" it is your problem and it's why this country is royally screwed.
An old proverb. If you owe someone $100 he controls you. If you owe him 100 Million dollars you control him.
I'd argue the problem isn't people not paying back debt, the problem is LOANING people 90K in debt who are statistically speaking unlikely to pay it back (Masters in professional dance). I blame the person extending the loans that were unlikely to be paid back, and collectively (as this is a republic) that's all of us.When LBJ created student loans, it was originally for STEM, Education, Business, and law degrees. Loan amounts should be weighted based on historical payback rates for a school, major or program.
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@dustinb3403 said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
@momurda said in Student Loan Forgiveness Rant:
That isnt how it works from @PenguinWrangler description.
The forgiveness will be taxed as income, probably at the rate bonuses/lottery income, much higher than regular income unless he is making tons of money(he isnt if working for feds).
He is essentially an indentured servant to the federal government for the next decade.Also, people saying the government shouldnt be spending money on education, LOL.
It should be the highest expenditure of the federal government and local governments.
It should dwarf the War Department's budget.Spending on education is fine, spending to remove debt that someone agreed to is that individual persons responsibility. Not the public's responsibility.
I understand what you are saying. I get where you are coming from. I have set myself and family up to have my loans paid off in the next 5 to 7 years. Without the forgiveness. I have been eating a lot of ramen and pb&j for lunch. We have been watching our money closely. Whether or not the government should do this is one thing. I would be stupid not to take it though when it is available to me.
