The insane arrogance of college debt forgiveness

From the Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2022, "The taxpayer con of the century" (full editorial linked further below), some key excerpts:

In 2010 Democrats nationalized the student loan market, eliminating guarantee fees for private lenders and using the “savings” to pay for ObamaCare. They also created income-based repayment plans, allowing future borrowers to limit monthly payments to 10% of their discretionary income and discharge their remaining debt after 10 to 20 years.

The Obama Administration expanded these plans to older borrowers. Democrats claimed the plans would reduce defaults and the cost of the loan program. They didn’t. About five million borrowers owing $110 billion are in default, up from 2.1 million owing $31 billion in 2013. Fewer than half of borrowers were even paying down loans before the pandemic.

The Taxpayer Con of the Century - WSJ.pdf

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Because some don’t earn enough to make a dent in their principal, their balances have accrued interest and grown. About one-quarter of all college grads earn less than $30,000 a year, and one in seven makes less than the poverty line, according to a recent survey. College grads without marketable skills or degrees often wind up working low-end jobs.

There’s dignity in work, but you don't need a college degree to pour drinks, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did after graduating. Progressive young people duped by Congress and colleges led the Occupy Wall Street movement, and now some are leading union campaigns against businesses like Starbucks and Amazon. How about occupying Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office?

Others go to grad school and pile on more debt. Federal graduate debt is uncapped, so colleges have added expensive graduate programs to reel in more subsidies. The average borrower who completes a master’s degree in film at New York University owes $113,180 and makes a mere $30,581 three years after graduation.

We don’t mean to pick on NYU. Many colleges saddle students with mortgage-size debts they can’t repay. The amount of debt held by borrowers owing more than $200,000 has grown 69% since 2017, and more than 30% for those owing between $80,000 and $200,000, while shrinking modestly for those owing less than $20,000.

About 8% of borrowers account for 40% of the $1.6 trillion in federal student debt. Doctors and lawyers from top schools usually can repay their six-figure debt. But others are victims—some willing—of a massive con by government and academia. And now Democrats are demanding that taxpayers make them whole.

Comments Michael Cavino Instead of writing off the debt, why doesn't the DOJ go after the academic institutions that charged students exorbitant tuition for paltry results. One would think Biden and the Dems would want Big Academia to pay for their excessive profits!! Start with Harvard, Yale and Columbia. Walter Altholz Can't threaten the colleges like that. They might take it seriously, cut the fat out of their bloated budgets and then what we do with thousands of recently unemployed diversity, inclusion and equity experts? Please rethink this!! Steven Sallwasser "Democrats have turned student loans into an entitlement for academia and the affluent. " Attack teachers? Isn't that heresy? Why is it that under liberal policies the affluent get richer and those without lose what little they had? Isn't it time we called liberals for not caring about the poor and marginalized? Why do they get away with their lies and half truths?