A Student’s Take on Student Loan Forgiveness

As a current college student, I can attest that attending college today is expensive and, for many students, impossible without taking out a loan. Borrowing money means taking on the responsibility of repaying it. Multiple student loan forgiveness plans have been proposed by Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and President Joe Biden, which would allow students to forgo their financial responsibilities.

President Biden plans to forgive at least $10,000 worth of loan debt for every student making less than $125,000 per year after college–more than $1 trillion total. But there are no other details yet. How does the president plan to explain to Americans that they have to start paying for every student’s debt? Beyond that, how can one generation have their loans forgiven while the next doesn’t? Or will all future students have their loans forgiven?

College is a time to learn to take responsibility for your own actions and understand the value of hard work and earning something on your own. For many students, figuring out how to pay for college is the first major financial decision they make in life. Taking out loans and expecting debt to be canceled sets a precedent for relying on others, and creates an unrealistic expectation for future responsibilities.

College is not a right, and whether to attend or not is entirely contingent upon individuals’ merit and choice, along with the corresponding responsibilities.

Many college students today are in favor of loan forgiveness. After all, it sounds great not to have to pay your debts. But this is a selfish view; it is a shortsighted perspective that will eventually backfire on college students and their families. It is easy to look at a current situation and want the quickest and easiest solution without thinking of the repercussions.

Knowing that loans will be forgiven, it’s not far-fetched to assume that more people will choose to attend college. Tuition prices will undoubtedly rise, placing a heavier burden on students who work to pay for college. Those who made the economic decision to skip or delay college and enter the workforce will find themselves paying higher taxes to account for others’ decisions to attend college.

While college can be valuable, more people attending college does not necessarily mean that we will have a stronger or more intelligent society. As Elon Musk said, “I hate when people confuse education with intelligence. You can have a bachelor’s degree and still be an idiot.”

Canceling student loan debt is also a massive giveaway to the wealthy and privileged. Nearly half of all outstanding student loan debt is owed by people with graduate degrees. It’s no secret that people with graduate degrees make more than those without, on average. This means that graduate degree holders are more likely to be in a better position to repay their student loans than those two-thirds of Americans without college degrees who would be left to foot the bill. If Democrats really cared about helping the average American, they would not be pushing to forgive the loans of those who are typically better-off.

The political Left is all about “forgiveness” and “kindness,” but everything they do seems to benefit one group at the expense of another. Student loan forgiveness is no different—a textbook example of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Loan forgiveness seems like a nice idea on the surface but it has an ugly underside filled with negative consequences. It makes me question if these Democrats in power actually want to help Americans.

For all former, current, and future college students, your debt is your own, my debt is my own. Why choose a socialist collective “solution” to a problem that is distinctly individual?

Like putting a bandaid over a crack in a boat, this short-term “solution” will not hold. Biden is hurting many to please a few. Student loan forgiveness will fuel inflation, raise taxes, and redistribute responsibility.

On an individual level, I have always been taught to take responsibility for my own actions. I want to be accountable for my own choices. I want to feel empowered by my hard work. This desire is encapsulated in a quote from psychologist Jordan B. Peterson: “The way that you live properly so that you can withstand the nature of your own being is to pick up a load that’s heavy enough so that if you can carry it you have some self-respect.”

Back before the federal-backed student loans came into existence, public schools colleges were owned and run by capitalism, by the owners of businesses and workers in them. Parents stayed married, preborn babies were not murdered, and the thinking of children were formed and channeled by one's parents and fellow responsible citizens in their local churches and schools.

Everything in our nation totally shifted when two things happened:

(1) A great burgeoning pool of borrowed money became available to colleges when the federal government agreed to pay the interest on unsecured loans to students while they were in classes (but not after), without defining which kind of schooling from was worth anything and for which the colleges were not accountable for the repayment of the funds permanently extracted out of the borrowers.
(2) Publicly funded high school teachers were allowed to unionize regardless of their abilities, who then seized the 13-year dominion of grade school control of infants from the local taxpayers through the NEA and AFT.

Without going into all the details, this is how socialistic Marxism has completely taken over the minds our children in my lifetime. I am 85 now, started first grade school in 1941, saw the War, graduated from High school in 1954, left college in 1958 (before federally-backed bank loans were available to colleges without any responsibility for the payment of them), finished a B. S. in Engineering 1963 (using student loans), got M. S. in 1971 and Ph. D. in hard science in 1973, worked in the sciences for 20 years, and because of great surplus of degreed but less expensive inexperienced recently-graduated immigrant competition, I at 55 became unemployable thereafter for another 30 years.

I am still conservative in thought and means, but have had to live on Social Security for the last 24 years.

Lived through it all, and saw the change from a decently moral American society to a Satanic, immoral, evil society through the influence of the Students for a Democratic Society given birth at Port Huron. MI under Walter Reuther's UAW, that has perverted even large religious organizations both "Christian"(whether Protestant or Catholic) and Mohammedanist (whether Black or Mid-East), against which the yet remaining Right-to-Live and Right-to-Think pro-life Constitutionalist citizens have almost lost power over.

We are at the end of decency for ourselves and our children without exercising physical force, my FRiends. The environment into which we were born and raised is now unimaginable and lost to our children's children. Kiss it goodbye and die, my pals.

The Port Huron Statement describes the source of our problems initiated 60 years ago, only a year after the federal student loan system was initiated and its SDS corruptive force began:

Excerpt:
'The statement expressed SDS's willingness to work with groups whatever their political inclination. In doing so, they sought the rejection of the extant anti-communism of the time. In the concurrent Cold War environment, such a statement of inclusion for the heretofore "evil" Communist ideology, and by extension, socialist concepts, was definitely seen as a new, radical view contrasting with the position of much of the traditional American Left. The latter had developed a largely anti-communist orthodoxy in the wake of the HUAC and Army-McCarthy hearings. Without being Marxist or pro-communism, the Port Huron conference denounced anti-communism as being a social problem and an obstruction to democracy. They also criticized the United States for its exaggerated paranoia and exclusive condemnation of the Soviet Union, and blamed this for being the reason for failing to achieve disarmament and to assure peace."

This is when and where the old idea of "democracy" ended and--what we call "democracy" (essentially Marxism) today--began.

Are you an anti-Trumpist, an anti-MAGA-ist? A RINO or "Democrat"? Then you are committing to not only abortion, but a killer of decency in your progeny.

Inflation in Tuition costs has been astronomical and it has been underwritten by democrats via generous student loan programs that prevent any kind of cost reforms within educational institutions.

Yep. You are so right in this identification of the cause of it.

Back in 1954, when I entered Syracuse University, six years before federally-backed Student Loans were voted in, the tuition was $700 per year. I had won a New York State Scholarship (25th of 50 given in Monroe County) of #350 per year, and which Syracuse U matched it for the remainder. So I earned my board by working it off in the cafeteria, and paid $60 a semester for my dorm room.

Years thereafter, the University's greed and explosion of loan-funded administration killed the excellence of its product and scholarship. As the unwarranted corruption of the student money market did for every other college in the years to come.

To go to Syracuse, I turned down the $400 a year tuition full Scholarship offered to me by Houghton College, and didn't even think about the tuition-free State Colleges for training in teaching and engineering and trades.

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