Got Millenials? Democrats Should Address the Student Loan Crisis Immediately [View all]

[alcibiades_mystery]

As a start.

You can't run around promoting college attendance when we have the loan numbers, the retention numbers, the years-to-graduation numbers, and the post-degree employment numbers that we currently have. Not only are you going to lose a key demographic (and that's just the electoral calculus), the actual policies are horrendous and destructive. Repealing any statute that restricts inclusion of student loan debt in a bankruptcy filing is an absolute priority. Increasing subsidies at the state and federal level is also crucial. The policies are feeding back into higher education as workplace as well, of course: the tightening of budgets due to lowered enrollments and subsidies is part and parcel of the adjunctification of higher education, which will in the medium to long run severely drain talent from American universities (at some point, people will simply stop working in these abusive conditions).

Of course, none of this will happen with GOP control of the Congress and state legislatures. But none of it was happening with Democrats either!

The Democrats are nowhere on this. Fucking NOWHERE. They need to put up a bill repealing the bankruptcy statutes on student loans EVERY SINGLE DAY. They need to be on teevee every single day trumpeting that bill and pointing to student loan debt as a drag on the economy, a drag on consumption, a drag on higher education itself, a drag on lifetime earning and incomes. People need to be able to discharge these loans if necessary, even if the government and the banks take a haircut. Here's the thing: most people WON'T. Most people do everything in their power to avoid a bankruptcy filing. But some people MUST.

And the Democrats are fucking NOWHERE on this.

Folks need to stop seeing non-voting as simple laziness or disengagement. It is often a very reasoned response to being totally ignored.