• Zippy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I think it is down right greedy for those who will typically be the highest wage earners to get loan relief for the loans that will make them wealthy. Why not apply that to business loans as well?

    It is particularly paid by those that will have lower wages so how can you say it hurts none?

    • toxic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s funny how we can print and print money for decades, we can “invest” in private industries, give them loans with favorable interest rates, billions in grants, look the other way with regards to regulations, not block anti-competitive practices, but the second we try to help actual people directly everybody loses their shit.

      Want to help the economy? That $10,000 (or $20,000) for Pell grant recipients might allow someone to save $300 more a month towards a house, a car, or spend it on goods and services. After 3 years, that’s money back in the economy rather than back to bank that have gotten plenty of help in the best.

      • Zippy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        But we can not print money for decades as inflation is now showing. And if you want to help the economy, why not give money to the poor instead of to people that will become some of the highest earners?

        • bostonbananarama@vlemmy.net
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          1 year ago

          What does our debt have to do with this inflation? Over half of inflation was caused by an increase in corporate profits. Most of the rest were supply chain issues and wage increases.

    • Grangle1@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s never been a guarantee that a college degree will put someone in the highest class of wage earners, especially for anyone who’s gone to school basically since the turn of the millennium. College tuition and fees have been rising far beyond inflation and wage growth throughout the 21st century so far, without corresponding increase in starting wages for college grads to meet that rise, and with that increase in tuition and fees, more and more students have needed larger and larger loans to pay that cost. Especially for those who went to college in the 2000s, 17-18 year olds could not have predicted that the economy would go to crap (the Great Recession) by the time they graduated, or that new grads would be most hurt by it as companies handed the jobs that would normally go to those new grads to experienced workers who had been laid off, preventing those new grads from gaining the valuable experience and connections that could get them into their industries. Since then the relative value of a college degree has only continued to drop, as those companies continue to shift to valuing experience over education in their hiring practices. New college students and grads can see that now and make better decisions, but back in the 2000s, when those loans that are out there now were taken out, could you really blame a high school kid for not being an expert economist or HR pro enough to figure that would happen? Too many people think of late millennial-Gen Z people when they think of student debt burden, but the largest portion of it is actually held by late Gen X-early Millennials who are paying for the education they got in the 2000s and essentially got shafted on those opportunities they were sold on when they went to the school everyone told them they HAD to go to. (Full disclosure, I am one of those early Millennials.) Biden made a dumb decision by trying to use a law aimed at mitigating COVID economic effects to solve a problem mainly caused by the Great Recession, but it’s still a problem that needs to be solved to essentially prevent an American Lost Generation from forming.

      • Zippy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Nothing is guaranteed but there is no question that people with post secondary educations on average will make significantly more money then their peers without over their lifetime. Multiple times more then the size of these loans. I am not crying when they got to pay them back.

        This is money that you are investing to make yourself more money latter in life. No different than a business taking out a loan to expand their services. It is simply greed on the part of those that get this but have lower wages earners on the hook for it in either higher taxes or less money in social programs. Tell me one thing that I said that is not correct.

        • Grangle1@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Over a LIFETIME, sure, they will make more. But especially in that past 20 years I’ve been mentioning, they start out with that debt holding them back, and it’s been more difficult for an increasing amount of people over time, due to the economic difficulties and the rising balance and interest of those loans due to exponentially ballooning costs of that education plus inflation, to both pay that debt back and establish a career and stable life that makes that increased earning possible. Most of that increased earning comes later in life for many, and payment on those loans can only be deferred so far. Millions of borrowers are putting off auto and home purchases and even marriage and starting families because their student debt is causing them to not afford such life milestones, because even jobs that require degrees do not pay enough early in one’s career to afford it; the increased earning is back-loaded, and really I would not be surprised if it’s also weighted heavily towards those who were already wealthy and could afford to not have to take out loans for their education, even for advanced degrees that will add on even more to their income. Further, with the value of a degree dropping due to employers focusing on experience over education and the increasing labor market with degrees, that income gap is also likely to drop pretty fast, and that drop I’m value is also likely to hit the grads from lower-income backgrounds who had to take out large amounts of loans much more than the wealthy who likely already had the right connections to get around experience requirements on top of not having to go into debt for their degree. They’re not the ones benefiting from this policy; it’s the ones who struggle despite their degrees, who are possibly hampered economically even more than the folks who didn’t go to college at least during the vital years when they should be able to establish themselves, who would be the main people who benefit.

    • june@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You also had to be earning less than $125k/year today to get the forgiveness. The highest wage earners were never eligible.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If they are the highest wage earners, they should also be the highest taxpayers. If we fixed both issues, they would be the ones paying for student loan relief themselves.

      • Zippy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        So you suggesting the rich that did not go to school should pay less taxes because they did not take out loans?

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m suggesting that if it’s true that people who go to school end up being the high earners, they should be the highest taxpayers. Because that’s how taxes are supposed to work.