bureaucrat#3
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I tend to agree with you. I don't really have a huge problem with the forgiveness. The cost versus value of 4-year degrees is crazy. The estimate for my freshman at a state school with typically lower cost of living is $26K per year. With scholarships, employee discount, and aid we're down to basically paying part of room and board (5-6K per year). Four years of college a student starting today with out aid or scholarships is coming out with $100,000 in debt. For most degrees that's going to take years to pay off. I think its also why most of the students are from affluent families. Both of Alabama's SEC schools pull heavily from out of state meaning those students are paying closer to $45K per year which makes almost no sense.I don't really have a problem with the government providing the debt forgiveness (in fact, I actually wish the limits were even bigger). The government (states and federal) are largely responsible for the situation by decades of disinvestment in the public higher education system causing tuition to rise so dramatically so I feel they have some obligation to help lower that existing burden when they can. I think the new cap of payments on income-based repayment plans maxing out at 5% of the borrowers' income is also going to be a bigger deal than the actual forgiveness for a lot of people.
If I had one nit to pick with the plan it would be that it wasn't accompanied with any sort of effort to lower the cost of higher education for future students. I have a fear that we're just going to be back in the same situation a few years down the line.
And frankly, I'm really tired of the, "I paid my way, so should everybody else" argument. To me, this is right up there with the, "We cannot do it that way because we've always done it this way" argument against changing things that is so prevalent in too much of government. If we have the opportunity to improve the situation for so many for such a relatively small cost, again, I feel there is an obligation to do so. Don't make everybody suffer just because I had to.