I think its a terrible idea. It doesn't make sense. I don't know if this is a distraction to this thread but -
If you want to help people who are hurting - then help them. But don't blankelty help college grads. In general, college grads are more well off than non-college grads. Its just a very strange group to have blanket assistance for.
Student loan forgiveness doesn't make much sense economically or ethically, but it makes a ton of sense if you think of the Democrats becoming the party of the white collar professional class and the GOP becoming the party of the working class (especially working class whites, of course). Handing out a windfall to one of your key constituencies is the sort of thing that political parties do routinely. This particular realignment seems to have quite a bit of momentum behind it, and some of the policy priorities floating around there -- like this one -- are easy to understand if you think of it as just an exercise in coalition-building.
We have a large swath of circumstances when it comes to loan forgiveness. And I can see arguments to relieve SOME of the situations. And yes, I am fully aware this is delving into "pick and choose who..." territory.
1. The group who gets a four year degree funded by loans.
2. The group who gets their four year degree funded by loans, then goes on to higher education to get yet another degree.
3. The group who begins college and circumstances get in the way, alter their plans, they put school on hold for various legit reasons or drop out for various legit reasons.
4. The group who goes, fails out and is left with the debt.
There's a larger list than this, but I feel like this covers probably 95% of the circumstances in this country. To me, #3 and #4 have the most obvious answers. We do what we can to help those in #3 as long as they can make the case. #4 is on their own..."pull yourself up by the bootstraps slacker". The real questions come with #1 and #2 because a good number of them are simply poor financial decisions if we're being honest, so I am not as inclined to dole out money by default to those groups, rather I'd want to see more education around the decisions and this goes back to high school counselors as well. #1 and #2 are really the problem areas with #2 being the largest chunk of money per person.
In any of these, I think the individuals should be afforded the opportunity to make a "hardship case" though. Make the case that you shouldn't have to pay the money back and if it's legit, then forgive the debt. We need to be able to provide a legitimate out for people who have legitimate issues pop up. I have a ton of thoughts on this subject as my dad was a financial aid director for almost 40 years and I got to see first hand how broken these programs are. I just feel like I'm rambling now, so I will shut up for now.