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I understand there’s a kneejerk reaction by a lot of conservatives to say “you take out the loans, you pay them off... Period.” I don’t think that’s a practical position anymore, even if I personally adhere to it.

College has runaway costs and little accountability for those costs, in large part because college loans are guaranteed by the government. The government guarantees and without the ability to discharge bad debt, loans are artificially kept cheap and easy to obtain. Where else can a 19-year-old get a six figure line of credit without a concrete method of collateral (or something to repossess if the debt isn’t paid)?

The other reality that we all have to deal with is that this debt is out there, and a lot of Americans are under this debt. Those people span a lot of demographics and fair or not, they will be swayed politically by someone who can “fix” this. (There are of course also plenty of people who did the right thing, payed off their debts in full or never went into debt, and would be enraged by a blanket amnesty from college debt)

There are ways to fix this problem in a free market, capitalistic system. Lord knows our President has used the legal mechanisms for discharging bad debt to his advantage over the years, as have many business owners.

It’s not socialist to address education costs, shifting risk from the government to the colleges, providing incentives to employers who help discharge debt, and even allowing former students to discharge bad education debt in bankruptcy in some fashion.

If the only responses the right has are dismissive, like “tough luck dummy, should have been a plumber,” or “I ate baloney sandwiches and slept on a steam grate to pay for college,” it does nobody any favors. It doesn’t address the existing problems, and it pushes people away from supporting the solutions you would favor and toward solutions you would not favor.

Government involvement was the problem.
It enabled colleges to offer programs that did not deliver marketable skills, to staff innumerable counselors, diversity coaches etc just raising tuition without any repercussions. Then the music stopped and student debt became a crushing burden.

The Government involvement made it easy for students to get loans that any reputable lender would not have allowed. The interest rates went up as well because there was no competition. The schools had no sense of fiscal responsibility & no pushback from the naive students.

Student lending should be shifted back to the private sector. Tuition will come down when there is no longer “free” money on tap. We might even prune all those worthless departments amid wailing & gnashing of teeth.

Just as making patients aware of costs is most effective if they are paying the bill (hopefully out of a medical savings account) making students & parents aware of costs so they can shop for value would do a lot of good.

Lastly the Federal Government bears the blame for this mess. They had no business becoming the sole source of student loans and their involvement distorted the marketplace and cause this debt bubble.

It’s a shame the people will have to pay the cost of straightening out the mess. That’s why voting is so important and the siren call of the Left is so insidious. The piper doesn’t get paid until long after you follow his song. The socialist idea of everyone goes to college for free is a further distortion waiting to destroy a generation & America’s economic system.

I agree that if the problem is addressed the right way using an innovative practical approach there can be creative solutions to deflate the bubble of present debt while making the future debt more manageable. Work study programs encourage students to understand the meaning of working to pay back debt and become more aware of costs while decreasing the burden of their later years and expansion of those programs could be an avenue.