Is Student Loan Forgiveness Wise?

Posted byvincentjg754gmailcomPosted inGeneral PostTags:, ,

Student loans should not be forgiven

Let me just start off by saying that colleges cost a lot of money and the return on investment for people attending can be good, or not so good.

Most people going to college don’t have a lot of money at that age, so they have to take out loans to attend. A college education isn’t cheap, and banks are there waiting for them, ready to charge them a lot of money for the right to borrow their money.

Let’s say a student goes to a state university. For the University of Massachusetts, the tuition and fees are $16,439 a year, and room and board is $13,595, so it’s $30,000 a year for four years, or a cost $120,000, plus interest.

The idea of helping relieve this unbelievable burden, of students nationwide steeped in debt, sounds good on the surface.

Never mind the fact that many students will graduate with a degree that does little to help them earn back all that money.

But a blanket loan forgiveness of between $10,000 to $50,000 to all students doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

What about all the people who wanted to go to college, but didn’t because they couldn’t afford it? Shouldn’t they also get $10,000 to $50,000 to put toward their education? At least they were the more sensible ones who didn’t overextend themselves and get themselves in more debt than they could pay for.

If this is a concern the government wants to address, it would seem that some other method, other than a check to people who owe debt on student loans, would be the best choice.

The government could easily increase the amount of Pell grants they give out, thus helping the most-needy students.

They could offer further discounts on loans, offer large enough loans to students at the government discount rate to cover the complete cost of education or require banks to offer lower rates.

In the end, any payoff would seem to be a somewhat crazy idea, but if the government wanted to do it anyway, they should look at the income of the students and pay off debt from those who need it, not those who are easily able to pay off their debt.

Published by vincentjg754gmailcom

John Vincent is a copy editor for Digital First Media working on the Boston Herald, Lowell Sun and Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, and has over 30 years of experience working in newspapers. He has seen the tenor of debate in the U.S. skew to a frighteningly high accusatory level in recent years, much to his dismay. Having been brought up to try to be cooperative when possible, and having been trained to be objective as a journalist, he yearns to see a better discourse among people with less finger-pointing. “I’d like to see more attempts at resolving problems with practical solutions, and, yes, meeting in the middle,” says John. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and lives in Fitchburg, MA. John leans Democratic, but has long been an unenrolled voter, disliking the extremes of partisan politics. He would like to contribute to closing the gap between political parties.

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