I paid $60k for a graduate degree from UMich. I lose nothing if someone on hard times doesn’t get sued by the government to garnish their wages.
Those are decades old dollars. Probably double now.
Yes, these literally are really old dollars. I don't know what the loans, sold to debt collectors are worth. Admittedly more than, say, tuition self-paid, which probably goes for less than ten cents on the dollar.
The point is, most of those debts were sold off, discharged, and the "dollar" they represented was long ago spent. We gain nothing, literally, absolutely nothing, no movement of the frontier curve, no pushing up of GDP. Any money collected will go straight to the current holder of the debt. It won't make more p,ie.
But where do those dollars come from? Those on the right would have you believe they will come from some hotshot, skirt chasing dentist that is just shirking his student loan, maybe he will have to let his Porsche go back. But for the most part, it will be hard working young people, maybe some just moving into their first home, many starting a family.
Those that graduated during the few years of covid have been left with an income hole, in lifetime earnings, that would easily pay off the student debt of someone that went to a major law school. Granting them relief from student debt is not unreasonable in the least.
Now, you want to throw tariffs on these young parents, disrupt the food chain, and then turn them upside down and shake them till their change falls out to get some big finance company some "rents". It blows my mind. Who the flip is heading up the FOMC? The actions of this administration are textbook, let's blow this damn economy up and slam us into a depression, skip that whole recession bullshit.
An entire generation is going to be lost, just flippin lost. But sorry, the point I want to make is that higher education should be free, as fair as practical. In North Carolina, that is a Constitutional Requirement. Let me tell you how much has changed in the last several generations.
First, you got the VA benefit package from WWII. The college tuition benefit current vets get is a damn joke in comparison. Back then, get accepted to Harvard, VA pay all the tuition. Now, they pay you the cheapest state college tuition in your state of residence, no matter where you go. That college tuition benefit of the WWII veteran benefit package was the best money this government has ever spent, studies have been done. The ROI was higher than any government spending, before or after.
I can't forget Virginia Foxx, Republican congressional representatives for Western North Carolina, Fifth District, absolutely beautiful country. Talked about how she worked a part-time job and paid her way through the University of North Carolina, made all the money in the summer. The flippin tuition was a HUNDRED DOLLARS, for a YEAR.
But even forty years ago, it was doable. The average Pell Grant pretty much covered tuition for those with limited incomes. Now, it doesn't approach a fourth of just the tuition. But forty years ago, I saw it being done. A private school, major in Anthropology. Tall, white hair, blue eyes, absolutely gorgeous. Oh, and yes, Miss North Carolina for a year.
She waited tables, as did I. But she worked at two restaurants, both fine dining. She worked lunch and dinner. I was just doing dinner. She absolutely rocked it. I always closed, it is where the money is. But she was always there late, buying "side work", she got paid by other servers so they could leave.
But today, well it just isn't on the table. You could Uber, DoorDash, bust your ass all night at Amazon, not happening. You might be able to make tuition, no way you swing room and board. And that is with max Pell Grant. It is penny wise and pound foolish, the government might save a buck or two today, but we lose endless amounts of real future tax revenue in opportunity cost alone.
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