DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus U.S. Judge Strikes Down Biden's Student Debt Relief Plan

A mortgage has collateral. Lets compare apples to apples. What has no collateral? credit card debt. 6.8% to 7.5% starts looking pretty good.

Here's a solution. Lets have an education Bond program, and everyone that want to provide loans to these young adults can invest their retirement into those bonds. The bonds can pay a lower rate, say 6.5% or whatever people want to loan their money for.

I wouldn't put my money into it for a 6.5% bond, but that's just me.


Gen X, the least represented demographic, is starting to get it on both ends by the boomers who are going to need the medical, social security, and pension bailouts, and the Millennials that want free college and guaranteed living wage.

No, but my point is if the reason that education debt is not able to be expunged with bankruptcy because there's no physical assets to sell off, then how is that different than medical debt??

I'm in the camp that if you took a loan you should pay it back... however, if you're at the point where you need to file for bankruptcy, then you should be able to rid yourself of all debts...

That's cool.

I was just answering your question. One is a choice, one is not, that's how they're different.

Thanks Fate!

Pretty sure they are the number one reason for most personal bankruptcies.

Last I heard it was about 2/3 of all bankruptcies. Keep in mind, most were first bled dry (no pun intended) of everything they worked their entire lives for. Sell your house, sell your car, cash in retirement and then file bankruptcy. Way different than "oops, I didn't know how to use a calculator".

My guess is that student debt is not viable for bankruptcy because it would be way to easy to abuse the system. Take out a 100k in debt at 18, declare bankruptcy at 22, go on with your shiny degree and continue life, AKA free education.

I think so, but don't you think medical debt is the lone special case? Medical debt is incurred by someone who really does not have a reasonable alternative choice and we have decided as a country that medical expenses should be covered even when people have no money, because the consequence of not doing that is people dying and physically suffering needlessly. But just because medical expenses and medical debt are special cases does not mean that every other type of expense should be treated as a special case.

[1] Cost of education is too high. It's ridiculous, especially when many universities have BILLIONS in endowments. (https://www.usnews.com/education/be...universities-with-the-biggest-endowments)

[2] If Education wasn't a business it would have to be run by the government. Is that what people really want?

[3] I'm not in favor of forgiving student debt. They made a choice and they need to own it. High Schools and Parents need to do a better job of EDUCATING young minds as to what they are embarking on.

[4] Healthcare and medical debt what is supposed to be a first world country... and the number 1 cause of personal bankruptcies? It is absurd. We don't need medical debt forgiveness - we need a National Healthcare system like the rest of the industrialized world.

I really think big corporations and other business’s should hire the students they want right out of high school and invest in them. Further educate them as part of their business plan. Short circuit the “we’ll educate you for a profit” business.

Thanks man! I likewise appreciate it. These are my favorite discussions. I’m swamped now, but I’ll try to get back with something more substantive at some point.

You equating credit card debt with education might be more of a root of the actual problem.
Plus, to substantively distinguish, you’re talking about private banking and credit-lending institutions that are doing so in order to make a profit. The US Government itself is a prime lender for education, with the overarching goal to make education more accessible and achievable for everyone, so your example is apples and oranges.
Gen X also has a lot of its own issues. I also don’t know these millennials you speak of that want free college and guaranteed living wage, being a millennial myself, but hey, age stereotypes aren’t as frowned upon as other ones, so have at it.

Part of the problem is the high interest rates charged for student loans. My wife started school at 45 and accrued about 80k getting her Bachelors and Masters degrees. 6.75 percent interest becomes significant. We paid that off with a house refinance when we bought our house a few years ago. My current loan is sitting at 2.5 percent.

The government makes money by giving out student loans. No wonder college outpaced inflation. Education became a game.

That is part of the reason why student loans is a form of double taxation. You get a degree and should be paying more taxes, but the interest is essentially another tax.

I think there is a misconception that home loans and government financed debt should be correlated. They are not. Home loan rates are going to have some correlation to the rates at which banks borrow money from each other. That rate is influenced by the Fed.

Student loan rates that come from the Federal Government are going to be financed by government debt. So the government has to borrow money to lend money. The CBO basically takes the governments 10 year borrowing rate (10 year treasury) and tacks on 2%.
You might think that they Fed rate and treasury rate follow each other, but they can actually differ quite a bit, so if you compare home loan rates to student loan rates at a time when the Fed dropped rates to 0%, then it is going to look like there is a giant spread between the two because the mortgage rates were at historic lows, but that is not going to be the norm over the long run.

So, I did a little research and the CBO basically sets the student loan rates about 2% higher than the 10 year treasury. Despite that 2%, the operation tries to be budget neutral, not making or losing money for the government. That extra 2% is going towards offsetting administrative costs, default and forbearance costs, the subsidizing of some loans, etc...

6.75% may seem high, but it is actually pretty low by historical standards and it used to be worse when most education loans were held privately. I used to pay close to 10% interest if I remember correctly.

Historical doesn't mean anything when you're comparing it the treasury rate. When you say "Yeah, these guys don't have it bad because I paid 10% in 1980 when the Treasury Rate was 14%."

Setting the borrowing rate at 6.8% in 2002 then saw the treasury rate dip substantially from then up until very recently, including the Great Recession. That was the rate that I paid for law school from 2006-2009. The following decade thereafter seeing rates pretty much exist between 2-4%, mostly closer to the 2 mark than the 4.

All this aside, that's just one small aspect of the whole student loan/education debt debacle.

Biden’s plan only forgives a max of $20,000 of student debt. That’s peanuts in the realm of education costs today. And republican heads explode. Lol

l Lets be honest. Dems knew this crap would'nt fly. Strange it came out right before Mid Terms. I wonder if any of these college pukes know they been used?

You may have misquoted me and probably did not understand the history behind student loans.
Prior to Bush's second term in office, most student loans were privately financed so they were not capped at the 10 year treasury rate plus 2%. The lenders had to consider the risks of defaults and forbearance and get insurance against those losses, so even when the 10 year treasury was around 5% (not that it mattered as the rates were not tied to the 10 year), we were still paying a 10% interest rate, which was completely reasonable given the fact that I had no collateral and no credit history. The rates also used to be variable.
Now, if my understanding is correct, federal student loans are based off of the 10 year treasury at the time of borrowing and set at a fixed rate that is 2.05% higher. That is a phenomenal deal on a loan with no collateral and no insurance.

And on Gen X in general, they did not present any of these issues. The cost of education was higher in real terms, when the graduated they made less in real terms than people graduating now in real terms, yet the tax brackets that they went into took more of their income. They paid higher interest on the loans, and when they went through the recessions of 1990s and 2000, there was no help given to them. There was no stimmy checks or loan deferrals or extended unemployment benefits. There was no giant tax credit for first time home buyers or for having kids in day care. They were expected to be adults and handle their affairs.

Everyone always knew that the baby boomer retirement crisis was coming and entitlements would grow to cover the costs of the growing elderly population. But I don't think anyone saw the giant entitlement class that would grow in young people as they sought to delay adulthood for as long as possible. Our entire civilization is built on the idea that young people are supposed to grow up and bear the mantle of responsibility because they are young, strong, and their minds are still sharp. I am not aware of any time prior to recent history where the young generation entered the workforce and expected to receive government entitlements. I am honestly not sure if this ever happened in human history prior to now. And honestly, this is what I think so many people actually find revolting about the whole idea. It's not just the overall cost, it is the fact that we are giving this away to the people that are healthiest, have contributed the least to society at this point in their lives, and have their whole adult life ahead of them. Most of us would kill to go back in time and be in their shoes, debt and all.

Good point. It is peanuts in the big scheme of things.

White House says that would resolve 45% of the loans...

Those people are drowning in debt and need a bailout? People with under 20k in loan debt?

But it's not based on whether they can afford that small loan, not based on their ability to work and pay it off, it's not even based on fields in which degrees aren't paying off, or anything that would make a speck of sense.

Basically, everyone qualifies, as long as they have a loan. It's almost like Oprah is in the White House.

Damn. If I'd have known you were going to post that first I would have had a better segue.

Even Oprah gets on her feet for that...

j/c

A lot of this all boils down to how you view education. Do you see a better educated populace as a wise investment for the future economy and strength for our nation? Or do you see it as nothing more than a business?

And before you answer that I would like to point out that while it seems as though some people feel this is an issue that falls along party lines, it doesn't.

I live in a heavily red state. Tennessee. Here every high school graduate that carries a decent GPA is guaranteed two years of either a trade school or two free years of community college. This allows them to gain many college credit hours towards a degree free of charge making for a much lower student debt in the end. This was proposed by a Republican governor and passed by a heavily Republican legislature.

Their reasoning is that a better educated work force draws more good paying jobs to the state and is a great investment for the states economy. It's been paying great dividends.

So, your answer is just pay off all/ any student debit cuz they are suffering...boo, hoo, having to pay their bills. Duh! I thought the American way was figure out stuff yourself, have a plan, execute it, and live a good life. JMHO, the idiots who go to college, get a degree that really gives them NO chance of paying their bills- then begs government to pay off their debt...WOW. How long can that society work.

The TRADES are begging for workers in lots of spots- yet, these newer generations don't want to get dirty or sweaty- that's for immigrants to do.
JMHO- we can't feed everybody, offer every senior citizen new hips, joints, eyes, etc, etc for nothing, fund everyone's wars- keep printing money, that's the solution. All parties have got to wake up and actually be self reliant some. Peace.

Yeah! Let those senior citizens spend the rest of their life in wheelchairs by God!

Not one red cent will come out of your pocket for this debt cancelation. When you identify for a fact that I'm wrong and can prove this cost you money personally out of pocket, then we would agree. But this government will spend that money on something and I would rather it be working people who could use a break. I'm fine with loan repayment for the same reason I was fine with stimulus checks and pandemic unemployment; the money was going to working-class people who faced difficult times. And as a matter of fact, I believe other than maintaining military superiority, we spend far too much money on things that don't help Americans. And I can't help but laugh at people that came up when the world was much different giving the bootstraps speech to the youth of today.

Was the median home cost in Ohio $216,875 when you went to college? Did child care cost you as much as you make in a week? Were most entry-level jobs back then public assistance jobs? You know, a job that pays such a low wage that you qualify for food stamps while working full-time? No. In our time the world had not yet lost its mind. We didn't have as much we learned to live hard, but there was opportunity everywhere and you could bust your ass and get ahead. Today, if your household annual income is under 75 or 80 thousand, then you are probably struggling, living paycheck to paycheck. Think about that.

I know what I'm saying won't change the closed minds around here, but I'm for anything that helps working-class people. I would rather see every dime the government spends benefit working-class Americans rather than just stacking Benjamins for the elite. Look how a character like MGT got in on the stimulus loans to the tune of 1.4 million. This is the kind of thing that happens for insiders and elites and where the money goes when we let the politicians write blank checks. I'm not even sure what her "business" was/is, but it's apparently not that successful because she got a government job and needed a loan to get by. But how can we be ok with crap like that, but not killing these student loans? If the government was not guaranteeing these student loans then education wouldn't be so costly or only those that can afford to pay (credit worthy) would be able to go. And if we don't want kids getting into this kind of debt, then the government shouldn't back those loans. Make student loans like normal loans that only good credit can get and watch how fast tuition, books, and campus housing prices come down. But then you would have more trade workers... so maybe that's the answer, no more guaranteed loans. Then people who couldn't pay could just declare BK on schools until the education system starts to fail as our healthcare system did during the pandemic.

And finally, Hitt, one quick question about what we can and can't do from somebody that has watched the greatest gen and boomer leaders kick the can down the road every damn time for my entire adult life; Where was all the bitching about self-reliance and bootstraps when your generations were spending 30 Trillion of the money of every generation that came after? Self-reliance my ass. And the sad part is that it's mostly the same old ass people who don't want to do anything for anybody else that agreed to let this government spend trillions so they could enjoy more in their lives in the first place. Where was all the bootstrap BS then?

Malarkey.

Good grief, malarkey.

The 6.8% rate I mentioned – as I mentioned – was set in 2002 by Congress during the Bush administration with the 8.25% cap to take place in 2006 (when I started law school).
You might be the only person who has ever conceivably made that claim about the cost of education being higher “in real terms.” That’s wrong. My source: literally every article talking about the cost of education over the years along with common sense. Look at how the cost of education has trended. Also, I don’t really think you have much of a point when it comes to starting salaries. The average starting salary (adjusting for inflation from the baseline) was $48,832 compared to $50,219.

https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/...ting-salaries-for-new-college-graduates/

The average debt at graduation in 1990 was $6,760 ($14,061 in today’s dollars). It was $31,100 in 2021.

https://educationdata.org/average-student-loan-debt-by-year

But, hey, everyone wants to be in their feelings about how bad millennials are, so have at it.

One other thing to consider is that the value of a four-year college degree has also gone down. College is basically the new high school. If you got a college degree in 1990, that’s great. Now? Let’s see that MBA/JD/Masters/PhD/etc because education has become over-valued, in large part due to the massive amount of loans that are given out. When I graduated from law school, there were 9 law schools in Ohio churning out 100-200 grads each. It would have made more sense to have gone into a skilled trade. Honestly. Much more sense. Any room full of professionals that you walk into, probably a handful of them can write a will while maybe 1-2 could plumb a house.

Oh, and I, a millennial, graduated law school in 2009, at the height of the Great Recession, and clawed for a job where I was underpaid and treated like garbage, but, yeah, I “entered the workforce and expected to receive Government entitlements.” Pffffttt… A lot of us millennials were in that boat.

I also find it interesting that millennials are talked about as the culprits, which makes sense, because it was us who took this country from being the world’s largest creditor to the world’s largest debtor, right? Oh wait…….. I mean, it was basically millennials that received all of the Great Recession bailout benefits, right? Or the PPP loan benefits, too? Hmm…
At least we have our pension plans to rely on. Oh wait… Well, at least our generation avoided constituting being a major fighting force in the two longest wars in U.S. history. Wait…
It’s okay, though. I have two siblings who are technically boomers, and three who are Gen X who make the same gripes…right before they ask me for all kinds of advice on legal matters, investing, marital dilemmas, estate planning, etc. I guess they just forgot I’m an entitled millennial, and they should be telling me what to do.

Man, you too? I guess it's always easier to be in someone else's shoes, right?

I'm starting to think Oober had the right idea about this place.

Hopefully now you're starting to understand over time how it becomes harder and harder to hold actual conversations and why my answers have become trite, sarcastic and biting towards certain posters.

I've pointed out how each generation looks at the next one and judges them harshly based on their preconceived notions. Each generation that follows them will "destroy America" and has no work ethic. That the generation who follows them feels entitled and so on and so on and so on. I'm much older than you and have watched this play out over time. Then you also have those who look back and blame everyone from former generations and blame everything that's going on now, on them.

It's a stupid game some people play. But let's face it, isn't it that way with everything?

Why do you think conspiracy theories thrive? It's because people aren't accomplishing the things they feel they should. Because their life isn't playing out the way they had planned. And in their mind it couldn't possibly be their own decisions that led them to that place. It couldn't possibly be that it may have something to do with American businesses moving jobs offshore.

So it has to be someone elses fault, right? The "illegals".... the liberals..... the youth.... our nation "moving away from God", you name it. They have to point the finger somewhere other than their own direction for what's ailing them.

So, just a couple veiled insults?

Be a man, what did Oober say about this place that pertains to my statements on the student loan bailout?

Stop.

There's zero veiled insults there, and I'd have thought you would think me above that, based on our overall discourse. My comment was directly aimed at your response and nothing more. To be honest, I was disappointed. Age is an immutable characteristic. We can't change when we were born. We can't change the environment we grew up in. This whole frenzy over painting with a broad brush for whatever reason is frowned upon for most immutable characteristics, but I've watched people place ageist stereotypes all over the place, quite hypocritically mind you. My previous response demonstrates how we can all do that same type of thing to any generation that likely ever existed, and it's stupid.

Don't give me any of this "be a man" garbage. Oober didn't say anything about this place that pertains to your statements, just that he left this place in general, my inference to which was due to how devolved it has become.

Pit - unfortunately, mind you - hit the nail on the head.

Have at it.

It is not my intent to offend you or anyone that is younger. I am just conveying that there are patterns in society and that those patterns of behavior should be concerning.


It's not uncommon for the most popular opinion to be wrong. In this case, all of those journalists are wrong. The cost has gone down. That does not mean that the price that people are willing to spend has gone down. Technology can decrease the price of things and in the case of education, it has led to multiple ways in which a person can get a Bachelors or Masters degree at a very low cost. It is even possible now to offer tuition free college degrees, and I do not have a positive or negative view on those colleges, but the mere fact that they exist is hard to believe because this was impossible 25 years ago. People's expectations for what college should be like are changing. People are willing to spend more on lifestyle improvements and for prestige.


Training and education is more important than ever. If you are coming out of school and not savvy with computers at some level, then life is going to be more difficult. If the skills someone has learned don't align with an area of demand, then that is going to be a problem.

But, I have thought a lot about this massive loan problem that you mentioned and I am not quite sure of the best way to handle it. One thought is we should cap these loans or use these loans to steer people into the degrees where there is demand. On the other hand, I am really not for taking away peoples right to chose for themselves and that includes giving them the opportunity to make bad decisions. Dealing with the consequences of our imperfect decisions is often how we learn the most difficult lessons.


I don't see millennials as culprits. But I also think that they have certain behavioral tendencies that are not helping themselves in the long run or anyone else.
I am very concerned about that debt problem and it is not the behavior of the millennials that have brought this financial problem upon us, but they will eventually share in the consequences if we continue down this road. And I would be the first one there with you to reduce the foreign war spending, social security entitlements, medicare entitlements, pension bailouts, and corporate bailouts. But, I am also a realist and realize that none of those thing are going to get fixed as long people are focused on their own self serving benefits and avoiding taking ownership of any personal responsibility.

In 1963, the annual cost of tuition at a 4-year public college was $243, which had the same buying power as $2,349.33 in September 2022 currency values.

From 1963 to 2020, the cost of tuition increased 355.1% after adjusting for inflation.

Between 2010-11 and 2020-21, before adjusting for inflation, the average tuition increased 11.4% at 2-year colleges.

During the same period, the average tuition increased 30.9% at public 4-year institutions and 41.3% at private, nonprofit 4-year institutions.

https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college

I suppose it's the numbers that are lying?

For one, I would say that they clearly mistook price for cost.
I am talking about the COST of education, not the PRICE of college.
And there is no arguing that that PRICE for attending college in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s was absurdly low.

j/c

The frustrating thing for me is that I chose not to go to college because I couldn't afford it.

Now, politicians are asking me to help pay for someone who went to college and graduated. These people made a college-educated & conscious decision to repay their debt.

Why can't I get $10,000 for making the right choice?

My statements?

I've said this:

And cosigned on this:

As to the first response (my actual comments), I've stated my opinion clearly. Here, I'll go one further...

People with under 20k in college debt don't need a handout; they need to put their heads down and work. How many of them? ALL of them. They're not drowning in debt. My criticism is of how mindless this entire "plan" is. It's not addressing the problem in any way. It's writing checks to secure votes, plain and simple. Nearly 200 BILLION of the 400B is using taxpayer money to buy votes. Another stupid plan that doesn't fix anything.


As to my response to s003's response. At the top, I'm not sure how the comparisons started; rereading most of the posts it seems that he compared certain generations and was labelled as playing the blame game. Wasn't involved in those conversations. It seems to me you took it as him blaming Millennials as you seemed a little heated relaying your own experience. The problem with these conversations is they aren't really possible without painting broad strokes here and there. I'm seldom one to take such painting and insist that it portrays the entire problem or solution to any general subject. I'm certainly not doing that here. You are painting me in that light because of the first part of his statement. Please go back and read, than tell me what is wrong with it. I'll help...

He's comparing one situation with another. The boomer retirement crisis is to be expected. The other part -- well, there are the broad strokes -- but the entitlement class is real, and the groupthink that the youth have it so bad is real as well. No, not all young people... he didn't claim that, I don't claim it either. I guess I'm guilty of not adding a disclaimer to my endorsement. The rest of his paragraph, sure there are broad strokes, but it's the pulse of what I see going on with the youth. Woe is me, this isn't fair, I deserve this, I shouldn't have to pay for that... And how he relates that to how the universe works, and how the universe will always work, is spot on.

So for that, (now that you've clarified your vague, rather rude statements) I'm equated as using ageist stereotypes and my input is "devolving" the conversation. That's fine. I don't get that butthurt over all this stuff.

And I'm sorry you're so disappointed in me. If you're so good at putting yourself in other's shoes, maybe you should reread your comment to me as if I made it to you; and tell me how you would respond.

I'm not going to argue about the plan because I have already talked about, in this thread, how one side wants to bail out the water in the boat and the other wants to drive the boat as is, and neither wants to fill the leak.

The "youth" that people use to paint broad strokes. The millennials...people like me...I'm almost 40. I just wonder when we won't be considered "the youth."

I am heated by my own experience. You yourself have called me "level-headed" before, so you can most likely tell that this an issue close to home. I apologize for any perception of rudeness. I considered you a "friend" on this board who is typically well thought out, so it really took me back. I'm often lumped in, with broad strokes, as you admittedly acknowledged to what is considered an entitled group, which - in fairness is what every prior generation calls the next - simply because I was born in 1983. It is tiresome when I hear these remarks considering what I've made of myself with the background I came from. It is tiresome. Age is honestly the only demographic where people can say "you people" about an immutable characteristic and it is considered okay to do so by society's standards. For instance, "You know that Silent Generation, a bunch of racists they were!" See, that ain't right.

Now, as far as your comment about me putting myself in other people's shoes, that's called empathy. I do actually consider myself fairly good in that regard trying to see where people come from, throughout the course of various discussions I have had in this forum and in real life. Understanding where people are coming from is a part of my professional job. I have received charged comments on this forum before. When they come from non-trolls and people I respect – and you can look it up – I try to mend the fences and either clarify earlier comments or get to the bottom of the issue.

There’s no real way to segue into this, but one thing that has hit close to home with me is the show Limitless, with Chris Hemsworth. He’s 9 days younger than me – another entitled millennial. Oddly enough, he’s the same height, hair and eye color as me. We’re practically twins

I was actually shocked at how much his concerns and outlook in life mirror my own. One of the lessons from an episode is making sure that you live each day to the fullest. With all of the issues going on in the offseason, the regular season, and the various forums on here, I don’t think it’s a good idea, or really is the best option for me to roll in the mud around here anymore. I’m going to make my departure, as oober did.

All the best, good peeps.

Everybody can use a break and not many people didn't work.

What do you mean by working people? My feeling is if you have a job, you work.

Back in the 60's, 70's, and even some of the 80's, you didn't "need" a college degree to get a good job. (and you don't 'need' a college degree today to get a good job)

Costs of education started going up when it, college, was considered necessary to get a good job.

Now, I know so many college grads, with a 4 year degree that don't even get a job after their BA, or BS - they head right for graduate school for another 2-3 years. The h.s. diploma got replaced by a BA diploma, and now is being replaced by a MA, MBA, etc.

Good paying jobs are available to people that want to work, show up, heck, spend 2 years in h.s. going to a trade school. Graduate - make good money, with no debt.

When colleges started becoming "businesses" also has helped to jack up the cost of college. To get 'customers', you needed that big rec center, new dorms with all the amenities, heck, one school in Ohio even has a lazy river (tubing type thing) going through campus. Educate Educate Educate, society has told us, and colleges loved it.

I'll be done now, though.

Not those "quiet quitting" liberals.

Yeah lol…all those pesky 70 year old seniors who got tired of being a slave to the man.

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/398306/quiet-quitting-real.aspx

Maybe you should educate yourself.