There will be fewer students but not enough to impact the top schools and those seem to be the ones that people feel are worth taking out tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands in loans to attend.
Note that only about 30% of young Americans are considered eligible for military service by the US military.
But loan forgiveness isn’t for private loans, capped at $27,000. People who don’t have enough saved for public college aren’t sending their kids to top colleges, it’s just too expensive.
Then why are people clamoring to forgive $50,000 in student debt if the max is $27,000? And why is $27,000 considered too much debt?
And people who don’t make a lot of money definitely send their kids to top schools. Those schools are the preferred ones because they give the most aid with the least amount of loans.
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Yes, people don’t understand that most of those with $50k or $150k in loans don’t have that much in federal loans that are eligible for forgiveness. Sure, it will help someone with $50k in loans to have $10k or all $27k forgiven, but forgiving $50k won’t have most of their loans forgiven. In fact, many people with $50k in loans consolidated their federal loans into private loans and they won’t have anything forgiven.
Much of the talk of forgiving $50k in loans is theater. Imagine the uproar if that bill does get passed and most of the borrowers find out it doesn’t apply to them.
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That doesn’t mean one shouldn’t explore this option.
If he can’t pay his student loan why should he be allowed to take on another type of debt? He’s not a good debtor.
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But not all people who don’t have enough to pay for college qualify for financial need, at least where I live with the median income of $85,000 and median home value of $480,000. Yes, salaries are higher but don’t make up for the high COL. We look like we have more to spend on college than someone in Mississippi, but that’s not always the case.
It’s being expanded all the time 
.
That’s up to the lender. I used to work for a high risk lender. We did lend to those who had recently filed/been discharged from bankruptcy. Why? Because they couldn’t file again for 7 years. If they were working and had no other debts, they were a good risk and likely to repay US (we didn’t really care about the other creditors). If one of our loans was in the bankruptcy, we couldn’t lend to them again because bankruptcy doesn’t really forgive the loan, it just restricts us from collecting the debt; the debt is still on our books and we couldn’t (by state law) have 2 loans to the same person. We had an entire program called Bankruptcy Recovery where the debtor agreed to pay the amount they’d just had discharged so that we could lend them more money. Yes. Idiots.
For federal loans, including student loans, the student who didn’t pay is unlikely to get another student loan.
I think the 27 max got going in this thread because that’s what I said I’d be ok with answering the original question. Others out there are proposing other amounts.
I’m also the one who suggested going further and doing this for all college or trade school students from now on. I haven’t seen that suggestion out there yet, but it might be somewhere. For me, it would be what I would do as Grand Pumba because I see how much good it could do in giving kids a leg up - anyone from the student desiring hairdressing school to radiation technology to a four year major of some sort.
I don’t see it getting abused much TBH. The student who wants to go out and be a carpenter, join the military, work in a factory, or open their own business of any sort because academics has never been their love is not suddenly going to change their mind.
There are a lot of pros and few, if any, cons as an investment for the gov’t. The fact that there would be no more student loans even available can lessen the cost and aggravation - no FAFSA for gov’t purposes. Colleges can still use what they like for their additional grants/scholarships/loans.
ETA: I don’t really see where anything would ever get passed like I suggested. Too many can’t see the math of how it would work out better for gov’t coffers and then there’s the “I got mine, sucks to be you” voters. It’s just my dream for a more equal chance in our country.
FAFSA would still be used if the government continued to give Pell grants.
I wouldn’t see a need to continue Pell Grants. 27K gives everyone a chance at doing something. Colleges could add more if they desired.
So every student is gifted $27,000?
Some of the people clamoring to forgive $50k don’t really understand student loans and the maximum amounts and who has private loans. One of the senators pushing the $50k amount suggested the usury rate be 7% for ANY loan. Well great, but then no one would have a credit card!
It’s a political suggestion to forgive all the loans. They won’t get $50k but they may get $10k, and then they can claim they’ll keep fighting for the $50k.
There are some people with $50k or more in federal loans that could be forgiven, but they are usually students who qualified for Plus loans, for graduate programs (medicine and law). There has been no data published on who would benefit from the $50k forgiveness amount, but it is not the average student borrower.
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100% correct. There is a huge difference between the undergraduate Stafford loans (max of $27k) and the graduate school PLUS loans which cover total cost of attendance with no lifetime cap. I would have no issue with blanket forgiveness of undergraduate Stafford loans. But $100k plus in grad school debt ? - you’re on your own. And none of this will ever be applicable to private loans. Just numbers on a page for most Federal loans since US Treasury has been the direct lender since about 2010. But no way is Uncle Sam going to write an actual check to JP Morgan to pay off someone’s private loan.
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Max - and the gov’t oversight I’d have in place would watch for those trade schools who suddenly maxed out that amount for every program when they used to be 18K or whatever.
I’ve seen a lot of need in school and often dream about providing options for students who can “do it,” but can’t afford it. Adding everyone in just avoids the bickering and extra cost of figuring out who qualifies and who doesn’t, esp since some who would appear to qualify only do so because income increased in the past couple of years vs having that way for a long time.
It also helps students whose parents could afford to pay, but simply won’t - or they’ll pay for sons, but not daughters, and things like that.
Everyone would have a chance at something loan free - even if it’s just CC or Trade School. If they then want/need loans for something more, get it privately. “Just” CC or Trade School is all many want anyway.
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My opinion…and I am guessing it’s not going to be popular on this thread…
If you take a loan…plan to repay it.
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And keep the predatory degree mills with poor completion rates for degrees widely regarded as worthless out of it (and veterans’ benefit educational assistance as well).
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Absolutely
On CC we could probably truly fix many of the wrongs of the world.
I’ve no idea how to do it through legislature - unless, of course, politicians/marketers are on here and can take it from this thread!