Schumer : President Biden should cancel student debt today

[867-5309.]

Chuck Schumer has been a warrior on this issue!

Link to tweet

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. What a boost to the Economy that would be.

[Sympthsical]

2. I hear the soft sigh

Of jimmies rustling in the wind.

[Magoo48]

3. Cancel all student debt now.

[Johnny2X2X]

4. But but but

Only billionaires deserve bail outs!

Total forgiveness probably won't happen, but eliminating all interest might. Or partial forgiveness. And better income based repayment options are also about to happen.

This might be a case where total and complete forgiveness is put out there so that when partial forgiveness and elimination of interest happens, people on the Right won't make a big fuss.

[c-rational]

8. +1, Well said.

[BlueCheeseAgain]

14. While I don't like giving money to very rich people...

$1.7 trillion is not a drop in any bucket. It's a gigantic amount of money.

[dutch777]

6. Ok but at what point do we start counseling students on good vs. bad educational investments?

Letting colleges and other post secondary education schools take advantage of students (and now the taxpayers really) by providing degrees that are not rewarded in the job market and way too costly, requiring for many loans that will punish for a decade or more seems completely irresponsible. I get the idea of a "good liberal education" benefiting society with a better educated citizenry and God know we need more of that, but at what cost? We have a niece who studied zoology and short of getting a PhD, her options are a very poor paying job in a zoo at best. Right now she is just hopping from one unpaid zoo internship to the next hoping to find an opening somewhere. Luckily her parents had the wherewithal to pay as she went and she didn't go to a $40k a year school but they are heading to retirement and may still have to carry her financially.

Counseling in high school really needs to step up and offer not only the "how to get into college" or other school but be clear if there is a career path beyond that and what is the cost of getting there and the liklihood that you will even be able to get a job in the field. I know our local public schools push kids to go to college and ignore the tech and trade schools just so they can say they have 72% or whatever of the graduating class accepted to college because that is a metric of "academic success" for the school district. But no one tracks if the graduates complete their degree, get a job in their field of study or anything meaningful long term for society or the student. The current system is not good for our kids or the society.

[Johnny2X2X]

7. We already do that

There's extensive counseling before taking on student debt. Students skim through it too much.

What really needs to happen is better STEM in primary and secondary education. There are tons of potential engineers and scientists out there that aren't getting turned onto those classes often enough. The US economy needs more engineers badly. You don't hear many engineers or biochemists complaining about their student debt because they're likely making enough to pay it.

And although we like to point out anecdotes about degrees that don't pan out and leave young adults struggling with a mountain of debt. Those are exceptions, I personally don't know anyone who got a 4 year degree that regrets it no matter how much debt they've incurred. Those trade schools and online colleges have a way bigger portion of students who feel duped I'd imagine.

And the trades aren't what they used to be, unless you're starting your own small business, electricians, diemakers, pipe fitters, and machinists aren't making the living in this country that they did a couple decades ago.

[former9thward]

10. I don't agree there is "extensive counseling" about debt.

When students graduate HS few know about how checking accounts or credit cards work. And forget about things like mortgages and car loans. Or even long term investing in stocks or whatever you think is good for investments. They don't know and don't care.

In the Chicago area steel mills are hiring and you can easily make over a 100k a year with a HS education. They have trouble finding employees. Why? People don't want to do work that can be hot and dirty. They think they can make money making videos or music.

[MichMan]

12. Also, why can't students research what typical salaries in their proposed field of study are?

You, know, this great tool called the internet that people use all the time.

It would take only a few minutes for someone to find out that borrowing tens of thousands in loans for something like a degree in Zoology might not be very smart. My niece took out loan to study Theatre because it was way more fun than something boring like my own major of Engineering for example.

Apparently even though our "best and brightest" have high GPA and think they are so smart, at the same time they are somehow incapable of understanding the potential salaries with a degree in their field of study, or that borrowing large sums of money for college will need to be paid back. They easily should be able to understand both of those concepts without some excuse of being taken advantage of.

Instead, we tell them to take any classes they want at the college of their dreams, and to take out student loans to pay for it. As far as they are concerned it might as well be monopoly money.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

13. Exactly

The son of a childhood friend has close to $80k in college loan debt he accrued to obtain a theater degree from a small private college in a different state. He never had any intention of actually making a career of the theater but that's the degree he wanted to pursue. Since graduation almost 10 years ago, he's waited tables and is now working in a marijuana dispensary, living at home with his parents, and complaining that his loans haven't been canceled yet.

His older brother graduated with a history degree from a state college that was within driving distance of his parents' home. He too never had any idea what he would do with a history degree, but by living at home and with the lower tuition, he graduated with less than $5k in loans, which he paid off within three or four years of graduation even though he too was waiting tables.

So while I have no issue with cutting or eliminating the interest, I'm not in favor a blank slate cancellation.

[FloridaBlues]

9. Reminder Biden never promised to eliminate all student loans. Up to 10k.

[marie999]

15. Will those people who paid off their debt or paid for their education get a rebate?

How about students in college now or who will go to college in the future, will the government pay for their college education?

[BlueCheeseAgain]

16. I'll say this as someone who stands to gain a lot, personally, from cancelling student debt.

Republicans like to give money to the very rich.
Democrats generally like giving money to those who need it the most. Or sometimes, to everyone.

A wholesale cancelling of student debt is out of line with our usual principles. It would take an enormous amount of money (there's no other way of describing $1.7 trillion-- it's larger than the entire Biden stimulus of early 2021, much larger than the $1 trillion infrastructure law, and roughly the same size as the BBB act), and give it to a small fraction of the population. And that part of the population already makes more money than the average American, and is better educated as well.

Of all the ways we can spend $1.7 trillion, targeting this particular group of people just seems the wrong way to go.

[bigtree]

17. so has the President, who has actually done more to help than Schumer's Senate majority

...albeit because of a couple so-called 'moderate' Dems.

And, he's poised to do more.

Link to tweet

[msongs]

20. has schumer introduced any debt cancelling legislation? nt