In the other thread most of the talk was about student loan forgiveness. For what it's worth, these student loan forgiveness conversations always come down to different visions of "fairness" and so far I think only one side of the coin has been presented so I guess I'll try to write a few words about my vision of fairness.
I think any system is unfair that says to a kid at 17 or 18 that he should make this enormous decision with the potential to cripple his entire economic future. This isn't like a situation where a teenage kid murders a homeless man and has to live with those consequences for his whole life, I don't have a problem with that. "Don't kill homeless people or you will destroy your life" is a message I'm comfortable with. But "don't take the risk of getting an education or you might destroy your life" is a message I'm deeply uncomfortable with. Especially because it's a decision that often doesn't have an obviously correct answer. And because it's been drilled into most people their entire lives that education is a key to prosperity. The kid may very well have been encouraged to do it by family members or teachers or other adults in their lives. He is doing what he at least perceives to be the right thing. I think as a society we should be able to do better than to say to him "sorry, I know you think you were making a good choice that was going to help you and your family but in fact you made a poor choice so you're going to have this giant financial burden on you for your entire life as a result."
The fact that it's often so ambiguous what the "right" decision is makes the decision to punish a wrong decision seem even more cruel. It is often the case that it's financially better for someone to go to the more expensive school if he wants to be a banker, but better to go to the less expensive school if he wants to be a teacher. But he's 17 and he doesn't know exactly what he wants. So maybe he gets pushed to the more expensive school because it gives him more options, but then he decides he actually wanted to be a teacher. I think it is cruel for this well-meaning person to suffer such a severe punishment.
I also think that some people tend to assume their circumstances in choosing a school and paying off a loan were equivalent to others that seem incapable of paying off their loans, but I think in the aggregate that's not true. It often isn't just two people with identical circumstances where one makes good decisions and one makes bad ones. As
@IvanKaramazov mentioned in the other thread, the people that are really screwed are those that: 1) went to a for-profit school where the degree is worthless and 2) only completed part of a degree but then dropped out. But I was never similarly situated to those people. Nobody from my social circle went to a for-profit school, the people who go to those schools are disproportionately minority, older, single parents, etc. Those are also the groups that often have to drop out of college to care for an elderly parent or child or to take a second job or something. It was EASY for me to finish my four year degree because I had none of those distractions at all. I was literally a full time student.
I also have to say I'm just not that sympathetic to people that got four year degrees and then paid off their loans but now wish they had some more money or had gone to a better school. You guys are doing better than most people. You're a college graduate. You have no student loan debt. You don't need help from the government. Other people do. And part of the reason those people need help is because of other governmental decisions in the past put them in the impossible position of having to make an extremely risky decision at a young age with very imperfect information.