One argument that this post misses is that a significant chunk overall, and much of the most burdensome subset of this debt (which is not the same as the highest volume of the debt), will never be collected anyway, although it still makes the holders’ lives worse. So the estimates of the costs of this policy are very inflated if they treat the forgiveness of unsecured debt as costing $1 for $1.
Still, I agree that just plain blanket forgiveness is bad policy. I don’t think that’s what was ever on the table tho? Forgiving a capped amount (I think $20,000 was proposed?) would alleviate the burdens of the most burdensome and least-collectible-anyway debt (held by low-income people, many who weren’t able to finish their degree for various reasons), while leaving people with high-priced fancy law degrees paying off their loans mostly as normal.
That said, if you think as a policy matter that college should be funded more like high school (free public option, expensive private alternative for those who want to pay), then you could be more justified in enacting that model along with cancellation as a kind of policy retroactiveness, or “reparations for victims of un-free college.”
One argument that this post misses is that a significant chunk overall, and much of the most burdensome subset of this debt (which is not the same as the highest volume of the debt), will never be collected anyway, although it still makes the holders’ lives worse. So the estimates of the costs of this policy are very inflated if they treat the forgiveness of unsecured debt as costing $1 for $1.
Still, I agree that just plain blanket forgiveness is bad policy. I don’t think that’s what was ever on the table tho? Forgiving a capped amount (I think $20,000 was proposed?) would alleviate the burdens of the most burdensome and least-collectible-anyway debt (held by low-income people, many who weren’t able to finish their degree for various reasons), while leaving people with high-priced fancy law degrees paying off their loans mostly as normal.
That said, if you think as a policy matter that college should be funded more like high school (free public option, expensive private alternative for those who want to pay), then you could be more justified in enacting that model along with cancellation as a kind of policy retroactiveness, or “reparations for victims of un-free college.”