[jimbomaybe]

Originally Posted by MartinSE

Mosty industrialize nations have free education through college. It does not have to be a business. We now have $2T worth of student debt and the only people that seem to have benefited are the rich. The government is on the hook for those loans, it have been cheaper to simply provide state run non-profit universities. And let the rich go to private ivy league schools if they want to pay.

So the "rich" have benefited from those who took out loans for educations that are not worth the money lent, government run and or paid for like so many of the public high schools that give diplomas to functional illiterates, few public educations are anywhere as good as private, little wonder they take out loans with not enough practical value to pay back the loan, DUH

[golfing eagles]

Originally Posted by jimbomaybe

So the "rich" have benefited from those who took out loans for educations that are not worth the money lent, government run and or paid for like so many of the public high schools that give diplomas to functional illiterates, few public educations are anywhere as good as private, little wonder they take out loans with not enough practical value to pay back the loan, DUH

You can't possibly be serious. This bill, nothing but pandering to younger voters, will cost taxpayers $1 trillion. And since 70.9% of taxes are paid by the top 10%, please explain how "the rich" benefit from this.

[Mrfriendly]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

I would like to see the evidence. I was a Federal Government employee for 35 years, hired out of college with nothing more than a college degree. No experience. I had job security, great benefits, and a very generous pension. I believe that I made a lot more money than any apprenticed tradesperson, and did a lot less work. I have been retired for 15 years, and have received almost as much money in pension income than I made in the 35 years I was employed. The only thing I did was to go to college for 4 years and had a great time doing it. I would never recommend that a young person pass up the opportunity to get a 4 year college degree in exchange for learning a skilled trade. It may not be fair, but having a college degree can be a ticket to success, even if you are not very smart. Just my opinion.

Thank you for your service.

[Nordhagen]

Originally Posted by Life as I know it

Where were all the complaints when the government gave those huge tax breaks to the very rich?
Look at all the people here having their old roof replaced using a loophole and we are paying for that too. I paid for my own old roof, it was the responsible thing to do. It all evens out in the end and we all know the rich pay less taxes than the poor.

Apples and oranges.
One was allowing people to keep some of THEIR money and maybe then they can hire Johnny and he can pay his own student loans.
The other one is confiscating some more of OUR money to pay off someone else’s responsibility.
Proven fact that every time taxes have been reduced revenue to the government has gone up. Want less of something , tax it. Unfortunately, politicians of both stripes, take that as their clue to spend more money and this is another example of that.
And, “we all don’t know that”. The rich pay far more of the total taxes in this country than poor people. Never got a pay check from a poor person.
Economics 101

[jebartle]

Originally Posted by golfing eagles

Well, I don't know who "we" are, and I have no idea what those "we" know (if they know anything at all), but the facts according to the Tax Institute and the IRS are:

The top 1% pay--------------------------38.8% of all income tax collected
The top 2-5% pay-----------------------20.7%
The top 6-10% pay---------------------11.4%

So, the top 10% pay 70.9%

Meanwhile, the bottom 75% pay 13.4%

Care to modify the statement that "we all know the rich pay less taxes than the poor"?

Socialist propaganda without the facts falls into the category of Goebels, Stalin, and big brother.

Ahhhh!, the internet, what else can we find that corresponds with "our" political persuasions. "Give me the facts, only the facts"

[Linnberg]

Originally Posted by tophcfa

Ditto! This also kind of makes me regret being responsible and working hard so I could pay for our daughters higher education. In hindsight I should of gone on a lot more ski, scuba diving, and golfing vacations and let her take out student loans that would wind up being forgiven. Who knew our country would evolve to one that penalizes responsibility?

Most of us also had free health care and pension plans or other retirement. The minimum wage, even at $15/he is worth less than when you started and college is way more. It’s so unfair how we continue to put down these entitled, lazy
Kids when most work so much harder and can’t afford homes or most anything when they pay so much for health insurance, not have dental
Coverage. Child care is now $12,000 to $24,000 yearly. I think we need to reassess their lives based on todays cost of living vs what ours was.

[Bay Kid]

My parents worked hard and paid for me. I worked hard, and the kids too, to pay for my 2 to go to college. No vacations during those years, drove old cars. Why should I be paying other peoples loans. Pitiful.

[golfing eagles]

Originally Posted by jebartle

Ahhhh!, the internet, what else can we find that corresponds with "our" political persuasions. "Give me the facts, only the facts"

Really????? Are you suggesting that the IRS puts out politically biased "facts"???? Get real.

[Caymus]

Originally Posted by golfing eagles

Really????? Are you suggesting that the IRS puts out politically biased "facts"???? Get real.

They will put out "correct" information after they hire 87,000 new Lois Lerner clones,

[3105boy]

Originally Posted by Tvflguy

Back in my school/college days, I worked part time to pay for much of my higher education. And a loan in order to get by. It was tough but I persevered as many here in TV probably attest.

But if I would have waited to legally pay back my college loan, $10,000 would have now been paid back by the gvt. And taxpayers.

I’m such a fool. Always thought that it was the responsible thing to do. And gain personal satisfaction.

Nope. Now simply wait it out and let taxpayers pay some of it for you. Darn it.

Prior to my Coast Guard retirement, I ran an office in Boston. Most of the men and women working for me joined the Coast Guard and requested to work in Boston because they got free tuition at any state school there. So, they chose to serve their country by day and study at night to better themselves.
So, who got the better education…those who went through boot camp and worked by day and studied by night…or those who got handouts?

[kenoc7]

Originally Posted by tophcfa

Ditto! This also kind of makes me regret being responsible and working hard so I could pay for our daughters higher education. In hindsight I should of gone on a lot more ski, scuba diving, and golfing vacations and let her take out student loans that would wind up being forgiven. Who knew our country would evolve to one that penalizes responsibility?

So what about the PPP?
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven.
Representative Vern Buchanan (R-FL) had more than $2.3 million in PPP loans forgiven.
Representative Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) had more than $1.4 million in PPP loans forgiven.
Representative Kevin Hern (R-OK) had more than $1 million in PPP loans forgiven.
Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) had $987,237 in PPP loans forgiven.
Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) had $482,321 in PPP loans forgiven.

[Jacob85]

Well I am sure things were quite different then. We had not had a three year pandemic where people could not go out of their homes due to getting Covid, restaurants going out of business this no part time jobs, and now groceries, gas and rent so high people are stretched to the limit because of the ripple effect of the pandemic! It was a different time with different circumstances. Finally, wishing someone else have a hard time because we might have had a hard time is selfish!

[MandoMan]

Originally Posted by JMintzer

Back in your day, college was much cheaper in comparison. You couls actually work part time and Summers and pay for college...

Today, you could work full time @ $10.00/hr and not make enough for 1 year's tuition and board at an "affordable" State School...

Now, that does not mean I'm in favor of this loan forgiveness. You took the loan, you should pay it back... But they could lower the interest rates and extend the payment plan time to make it more affordable.

I won't even get into the skyrocketing costs of tuition... That's another topic for another day...

You are correct. When I started college at a parochial school in 1972, my parents both worked, but I still qualified for Pell GRANTS that provided about $3,000 a year, and I also got about $3,000 a year in loans that I wouldn’t have to start paying back until ten months after I stopped going to school. The interest was paid by the government while I was in school, and it was only 3% after I finished. I was in school until I earned my Ph.D., and then I got a decent job and paid off my total of $12,000 in loans in full in 1983 before I paid any interest. (I worked summers and paid most of my school costs that way. The loans helped a lot, though.)

When I became a university professor in 1986, Pennsylvania taxpayers paid 56% of the costs of running the 14 campuses of the State System of Higher Education. Nearly all of the students were middle class, working class, or poor, and a huge percentage of the kids were the first ones in their families to attend college. Tuition was kept low. It was a good investment. The graduates became teachers and worked in businesses all over the state and paid taxes. For the past twenty years, though, the state has only paid about 25% of the cost of running these universities. Students and their families had to take out more loans to pay the now-doubled tuition fees. Government grants and low-interest education loans were now available only to the poorest students, so parents borrowed money from companies that charged interest right away, and at a higher rate.

This is the source of the student loan problem. Now we the people are being asked to pay after the fact to cover a small part of the cost of loans that students wouldn’t have needed or would have got at better rates when I started college because the government covered more of the costs.

I understand not wanting to pay high taxes. It’s complicated, though. Sometimes paying in advance to help Americans get good educations at state schools makes more sense than having to pay to help clean up the mess years later.

Meanwhile, Congress—both sides of the aisles—allowed scam schools without standard accreditation to prey on students, offering low-quality educations at high prices with easy access to expensive, predatory loans. These schools are the source of many of the student loan problems. They should be forced to repay what they stole from students, and the predatory lenders should be forced to cancel all interest charges.

[cphague]

1 - As a result of this, many universities are talking students into useless degrees that do not pay enough to both live and make their student loan payments at the same time.
2 - The government guaranteed the student loans, so universities saw dollar signs and went on a hiring binge so many have more administrative staff than teachers. All on the backs of students getting loans that they knew would not be defaulted on.
3 - To maintain the gravy train, students were talked into going to college instead of a vocational or technical school where many would have thrived.

I don't like loan forgiveness, but this is not a good situation. Predatory lending to teenagers is a lot of what is going on.

Originally Posted by MartinSE

The government created the problem by making student loans available and NOT regulating the universities so they could not raise tuition in response. With the rise in tuition came the rise in salaries, and more. Universities became a profit center. And they devolved into the mess we have today - sort of like healthcare. Education and healthcare in my not so humble opinion have no business being businesses. They are investments in our country but improve productivity and competition with the rest of the world.

So, we screwed up, and we need to fix it. $2T of debt is a serious burden that students are carrying because our government screwed up. They were told over and over growing up - "YOU HAVE TO HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE TO SUCCEED". Then they looked into it and found that would cost them $10's of thousands per semester, no way you can work you way through college anymore unless you are a politician or an investment banker, and if you ware you don't need a college degree.

I love the comparisons to the 1960's - LOL! Seriously? You could go to college in the state you were a resident and most of the time it was free or a few hundred to a thousand per semester. Yup, you could flip burgers and pay that.

I personally think we should regulate state universities so any resident can go to college (or community college) for free. Anyone wanting to go to a private or ivy league university can pay the price for it.

And I personally would rather the government spend $2T of my tax dollars forgiving ALL the student debt and canceling the program, than they did throwing away $4T fighting a war for 20 years in Afghanistan without telling the military how they were supposed to win it. Or another $5T throwing money at COVID and having 1/2 of it stolen.

Let's see help our children or fight an endless war with can't win? Hmm. hard choices.

[RiderOnTheStorm]

Originally Posted by Carla B

Now that's an interesting viewpoint and there's probably truth to it. I do wonder why in this day and age so many people feel the need for a college degree. They, and us, would be much better off monetarily if they trained to be skilled craftsmen, like electricians, plumbers and HVAC technicians. But that would require hard work.

Regarding the skilled trades. At a very early age I needed to work to help support my parents and siblings. I became a plumber's apprentice and after five years took a huge leap of faith and formed my own commercial plumbing business. On the side I purchased and renovated rundown homes which I then leased out. First one, then two, then four, then eight, etc. Eventually hired other tradespeople to help with the renovations. After 35+ years I now own 996 apartments and enjoy a high seven-figure annual income. All it took has a plan, a committed spouse and a lot of hard work; no college degree. College is definitely NOT for everyone.