For those who are new to this conversation, and claim that cancelling the debt doesn't solve the fundamental problem: Everyone advocating for student debt cancellation is also a supporter of making colleges and trade school tuition-free, and sees cancellation as an intentional strategy to accomplish that.
The reason there is this present focus on Biden using his executive order to cancel student debt is because (1) he has that power to do so right now, (2) nobody expects congress to pass legislation to cancel it over the next four years, and (3) because cancelling all of that debt would force congress to enact tuition-free legislation or be doomed to allow the debt to be cancelled every time a Democratic president takes office (since a precedent will have been set).
Meaning, to avoid the need for endless future cancellation (an unsustainable situation for our economy) the onus would be forced onto congress (against their will) to pass some kind of tuition-free legislation whether they like it or not.
As a side note, because the federal government will be the primary customer for higher education, that means they also have a ton of leverage to negotiate tuition rates down so that schools aren't simply overcharging the government instead of students.
I'd be happy at this point if they just take away the interest. I've been on and off paying student loans for like 7 years, and I think I've only paid like 2K from principal and like 10K in interest.
finalgarlicdis on May 25th, 2021 at 20:33 UTC »
For those who are new to this conversation, and claim that cancelling the debt doesn't solve the fundamental problem: Everyone advocating for student debt cancellation is also a supporter of making colleges and trade school tuition-free, and sees cancellation as an intentional strategy to accomplish that.
The reason there is this present focus on Biden using his executive order to cancel student debt is because (1) he has that power to do so right now, (2) nobody expects congress to pass legislation to cancel it over the next four years, and (3) because cancelling all of that debt would force congress to enact tuition-free legislation or be doomed to allow the debt to be cancelled every time a Democratic president takes office (since a precedent will have been set).
Meaning, to avoid the need for endless future cancellation (an unsustainable situation for our economy) the onus would be forced onto congress (against their will) to pass some kind of tuition-free legislation whether they like it or not.
As a side note, because the federal government will be the primary customer for higher education, that means they also have a ton of leverage to negotiate tuition rates down so that schools aren't simply overcharging the government instead of students.
anti-pSTAT3 on May 25th, 2021 at 22:29 UTC »
Iirc the legality of that is not well settled. That means a 6-3 court.
BenDoverAgain1 on May 25th, 2021 at 23:15 UTC »
I'd be happy at this point if they just take away the interest. I've been on and off paying student loans for like 7 years, and I think I've only paid like 2K from principal and like 10K in interest.