ISP chart by Elijah Smith

Evidence 1 against student loan debt

elijahsmith110 — 2025-03-15 01:21:27 UTC

"Fairness and respect, however, also demand that society address the magnitude of student debt today, and especially the burden it imposes on low-income, first-generation and Black borrowers. Young people today start their adult lives burdened with much more student debt than previous generations. Almost 70% of college students now borrow to attend college, and the average size of their debt has risen since the mid-1990s from less than $13,000 to about $30,000 today. The first concern is that the distribution of costs and benefits is highly unequal. Fairness requires equal opportunity, as the philosopher John Rawls argued. Yet, while borrowing for education is supposed to create opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, those opportunities often fail to materialize due to educational challenges and wage gaps in the labor market."

Evidence 2 against student loan debt

elijahsmith110 — 2025-03-15 01:21:31 UTC

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) shared a new analysis on the benefits of various levels of student debt cancellation on student loan borrowers. The analysis was prepared by Dr. Charlie Eaton, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California Merced, along with co-authors from UC Merced and Princeton University. The analysis shows that student debt cancellation would deliver substantial relief and opportunity to millions of borrowers and that higher levels of cancellation do more to advance racial equity and economic security... As this report clearly underscores, communities are grappling with increasing gas prices and food costs, and the more debt we cancel, the more people we will help.

counter claim

elijahsmith110 — 2025-03-15 01:21:34 UTC

The problem is, "forgiving" debt doesn't make it go away, it just shifts the burden. These "loans" effectively become grants, and the taxpayers are left footing the bill. This is a classic example of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. The winners, which are a relatively small group, get a very visible benefit. But the losers, which are a relatively large group, suffer a very invisible cost in the form of higher taxes. The 19th century French economist Frédéric Bastiat called this kind of practice legal plunder. Whereas the law is supposed to uphold and protect property rights, he says, it is often weaponized to violate property rights. Put simply, canceling student debt amounts to robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is giving one group an unearned handout by forcibly taking the money from another group. But ethics aside, there's also a practical reason why the people who stand to gain from this move should be against it. To be sure, they get a windfall in the short term. But in the long term, they will likely be net losers.

Evidence 3

elijahsmith110 — 2025-03-15 01:21:37 UTC

Nothing could be further from the truth. The total loans outstanding exceed $1-trillion now, which is far greater than either credit-card or car-loan debt. Students finish college with an average debt of more than $25,000. Some students owe more than $100,000. Many start their adult life deep in debt and have no choice but to delay buying a car or a house, or getting married and having children. Some are so saddled with debt that they never dig their way out: Americans 60 or older still owe about $36-billion in student loans. In addition, many students default on their loans and may end up in bankruptcy. Given the steep price tag of tuition, it also means that fewer students may opt to go to college and graduate schools in the future.

The implications for the national economy and America's international competitiveness are clear-college debt has ballooned to such unprecedented proportions that the country is now in the midst of a real crisis. True, the annual student-loan payments (about $60-billion) are only about 0.4 percent of GDP, but the total amount ($1-trillion) represents 6.6 percent of GDP. The problem of student debt is not a side show. It could well be the next economic bomb that sends the country in a tailspin.