Posted on 06/15/2022 8:11:27 AM PDT by Heartlander
We put five children through college (one is still attending). We saved up. We never took out any loans, as we didn’t want our kids burdened with debt. Our kids went to William and Mary, Mary Washington, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Pennsylvania. So far, the total costs for these colleges have been well more than $600,000.
Last week, Biden forced taxpayers to assume nearly $6 billion in federal student loans for 560,000 borrowers. News stories announced the decision on forcing taxpayers to pay off the loans for others appears delayed until closer to the election. While some debt is likely to be paid off by taxpayers, Democrats will probably keep other borrowers locked in politically by continuing to freeze repayments and warning that Republicans will end that.
Should my wife and I have just borrowed all of this money and sent our kids to public universities? If so, we could have had $600,000 to spend on all sorts of other things — nicer cars, nicer houses, or fun trips. Or we could have given that money our children and grandchildren when we die.
To save to pay our family’s college bills, we always purchased used cars that were a year old and then drove them for years. My Ford Taurus lasted for 16 years and had more than 225,000 miles. My wife’s Pontiac Transport lasted almost as long before rust meant that it could no longer pass the state’s yearly safety check.
But we didn’t complain. We promised our children that if they worked hard and got into a good college, we would figure out a way to pay for them to go. We were proud of our children’s hard work, and we thought going to a top university was important for their success in life.
So, because we saved up and behaved responsibly, President Joe Biden will punish us. Those who didn’t save or work 80- to -90-hour weeks, who spent their money on other nice things instead, now get us and other taxpayers to pick up the tab for their kids’ education. How exactly is that fair?
Nor is it fair to those who don’t go to college. The people who go to college generally tend to be the future wealthy in the country. Why should those who didn’t go to college and are relatively poorer end up giving large amounts of money to those who did go and are going to be wealthy?
Has anyone thought about the effects these policies will have on people’s behavior? It tells people that they don’t need to save up to send their kids to college. It also communicates that they don’t need to save up to buy a home. If Biden wins and enacts his programs, Americans will surely reduce their already low savings rates. That will make our country poorer.
Biden keeps on discussing preferential treatment for public universities. His policies could be the death knell for many private schools, which already have a hard time competing against heavily taxpayer-subsidized public universities. The Obama administration put private, for-profit colleges out of business, and a Biden administration will finish the job with many nonprofit private colleges.
Student debt has ballooned over the last decade, but the cause is ironic. At the beginning of the Obama administration, the government took over student loans from banks. But the government was much less concerned than banks were about getting their money back. It just kept giving out loans, even if it looked like the student would never be able to pay it back. So now we have a situation in which the government lends out too much money to some people who went into fields that don’t pay well enough to cover student debt payments.
Biden and the Democrats are outright buying votes. Promising tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to young people is nothing short of bribery. And to do so, they are using my family’s money and the money of other families who made sacrifices for their children.
I have yet to hear anyone, say anything, about what happens to those currently in school, who have taken out loans but have not yet graduated. Will their loans also be forgiven eventually? My understanding is that the talk of forgiveness is for those who have graduated and in repayment status now, but not those currently in school and taking out new loans.
What about students just entering college now, and taking out their first loans now? Will those be forgiven?
It seems to me, that if we start down this road, you will have to reach a point where nobody will ever have to repay a student loan.
Call it by its real name - its a vote buying scheme.
I think there should be an effort to make college affordable by eliminating all of the useless crap like bloat and diversity departments so people do not need to take eleventy billion dollar loans in the first place, but neither side seems to want to talk about that
Its (white) liberal woman “privilege” at its worst. Women hold the majority of student debt.
I have saved enough for my grandchildren’s college. But if loan forgiveness becomes policy I will encourage them to take loans. Then my savings will be available for more fun things, like a mid-engine Corvette, or a place in Hawaii.
It is a redistribution of wealth based on failure.
Freeloaders With Diplomas Rule! America. The Real Animal House.
Back in the FR day, someone would post The Grasshopper and The Ant, and it would invariably get yanked for too much truthiness...
You want to get a degree in nursing or mechanical engineering, there should be a private sector loan for about 3%. Want to study puppetry or gender studies, make it 27% interest.
The problem revolves around Obama having had the government take over student loans in 2008. College Admins personnel numbers and salaries and professors salaries increased took off even worse.
Parents were not advocating for their 17-18 year olds against this by either resisting this directly or advising their teens to not study anything that would. Not get them a sure position able to pay back a $60 - $180 K education. Why not?
People want to talk about not letting an 18 year old buy a gun but they’re completely responsible in this instance?
The government is ripping kids off
Now you have an Obama scheme that went to crap. He can say nasty things re Biden all day but everything Obama touched turned to crap
These kids can neverrr pay these loans. Nor can their parents. These loans will never get paid by the borrower it will get paid by the taxpayer, bill or no bill. While miserable Obama and his family have multiple multi multi million dollar estates all over on his retirement from a 400k presidential salary
This was always a pyramid scheme
People need to look at lazy selfish uninvolved unimauninformed parents for the solution
Yeah, how about a refund to all of us who paid through our teeth, and fulfilled what we promised we would do.
Ping
It is like amnesty for illegal aliens. They always say it is a one time deal, but it never is.
I am going to feel like a real rube for encouraging but kids to go to lower cost public universities and to work their way through school so they could graduate debt free.
Beat me to it.
I’m sure that people who graduated 5 years ago with big debts think this is a swell idea. But those who never went to college, those who have paid off their debts, those who are enrolled now, and — I think especially galling — those who are, let’s say, 15 right now. They gonna miss the boat, aren’t they? Big debts in their future, but who cares?
The only way this “makes sense” is to wave that magic wand and say no one ever pays for college and all professors and administrators are just paid by the government.
Not gonna happen. So what Biden is aiming at is manifestly unfair to almost everyone in the country.
I have four kids that will be heading off to college soon, and I am planing to take out all the loans I can (that don’t accrue interest during college, even though I don’t need to, knowing that liberals are pushing for this.
If they forgive the loans, WOOP! free money, if not, I will simply pay them off like I would of done to begin with.
I’m all for it as long as the money comes out of a tax on the endowments of all the Universities.
Amen.
Rich people rob middle-class people to buy votes from poor people as both the rich and the poor hate the middle-class.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.