A few months back I opined on then potential school loan forgiveness and … now it has happened. Joe Biden, the king, has proclaimed that a select group would have their loans forgiven. Not just a few, and that is a big part of the problem with this forgiveness plan. It is going to cost a gazillion dollars. Who is going to pay for it? Err, sorry American taxpayer.
I purposely did not go back and reread my recent blog on this same subject as I didn’t want to be accused of plagiarism … that seems to be a Biden speciality!
Way back when, I had a school loan … I paid it off. My three girls all had school loans … they paid them off. I am a firm believer in paying off what you owe.
From my perspective included in this group of now ex-students who owe money, there are a few groups that deserve extra attention.
First, as comedienne Ron White said, “You can’t fix Stupid!”(YCFS) There are those who never should have gone to college in the first place. They took out loans to do the impossible. The impossible here being graduating from college. These individuals are really getting screwed. They borrowed money they should have never borrowed. There was never any hope to start with as … no disrespect intended … YCFS. One might then ask, “If there was no realistic hope of these individuals making it through college, why were they in college? As is true in a lot of situations …. “Follow the money.” Perhaps those colleges that gave them this false hope should pay? My compromise would be that the colleges should pay off the loans of these unfortunate individuals, if they did not make it into Junior year. However, if they did make it to Junior year, then the entire burden is on the student.
Likewise those schools that offer degrees for which there is no market … e.g. gender studies or basket weaving … should be sued by those who borrowed an exorbitant amount for a basically worthless degree. Whether or not these ne’er do well ex-students would win is irrelevant. However, it would certainly get the attention of the colleges,and who knows!
No empathy for these ex-students.
Nonetheless, there is one group of student loans that I do have empathy for. This group is made up of parents and grandparents who put themselves in a deep hole because they signed for their kids’ or grandkids’ loans. They wanted their children or grandchildren to have a better life than they had, and I get that. Now, I can hear you saying that these parents and grandparents were just stupid, and you cannot fix stupid (YCFS).To that I would respond, “Love + hope does not equal stupid.” These are the people that I empathize with. These are the loans that our “cannot fix stupid” President (CFS-JB) should pay attention to.
It is this group that is deserving of $10K-20K of loan forgiveness.
9/2/22
californiacontrarian